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 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 FROM THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 
 
 V S5 S 5 a I J3 /o5 
 
 
Cornell University Library 
 E 99.F7097 
 
 Folk-lore of the Musquakie Indians of No 
 
 3 1924 006 485 449 
 
 olin 
 
r^.> 
 
 Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924006485449 
 
"^ke golk-'§oxt cSocwtp 
 
 FOR COLLECTING AND PRINTING 
 
 RELICS OF POPULAR ANTIQUITIES, &c. 
 
 ESTABLISHED IN 
 
 THE YEAR MDCCCLXXVIIL 
 
 PUBLICATIONS 
 OF 
 
 THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY 
 
 « 
 
 LI. 
 
 [1902] 
 
FOLK-LORE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 MUSQUAKIE INDIANS OF 
 NORTH AMERICA 
 
 AND 
 
 CATALOGUE OF MUSQUAKIE BEADWORK AND 
 
 OTHER OBJECTS IN THE COLLECTION 
 
 OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY ALICIA OWEN 
 
 WITH EIGHT PLATES AND FIGURES IN THE TEXT 
 
 ^uh\x»\itt fax the S^Dn-'^oxz §atizijQ, bg 
 DAVID NUTT, 57-59 LONG ACRE 
 
 LONDON 
 1904 
 
 ^9 
 
GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 BY ROBERT MACLEHOSB AND CO. LTD. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 At the meeting of the British Association at Toronto in 
 1897, a paper on the folklore of the Musquakie Indians 
 was received from Miss Owen, the author of the following 
 pages, who unfortunately was herself unable to be present. 
 After the meeting was over, the paper in question was, 
 with some others, forwarded by the recorder of Section 
 H (Anthropology) to me, for examination with a view to 
 publication by the Folk-lore Society. It was read at a 
 meeting of the Society in the course of the following 
 winter. But, while in some respects a valuable contri- 
 bution to our knowledge of the tribe, it was short, and 
 lacked the details desirable in a scientific account of the 
 tribe. The writer was known to be intimately acquainted 
 with the Musquakies, and it was obvious that the paper 
 contained only a small part of the information she, and 
 probably she only, could give. The Council of the Society 
 therefore requested me to invite her to expand it. Accord- 
 ingly I wrote to her. The result of the correspondence 
 was that she not only acceded to the wish of the Council, 
 but also with rare generosity offered to present to the 
 Society her collection of Musquakie bead work and cere- 
 monial implements. This collection had been slowly 
 accumulated during many years of direct personal inter- 
 course with members of the tribe. The objects it con- 
 tained were genuine products of native industry, and 
 implements actually used in the religious ceremonies of 
 
vi Preface, 
 
 the tribe. Many of them, indeed, had grown obsolete in 
 the gradual abandonment of the indigenous customs and 
 civilization; and they were consequently impossible now 
 to obtain. The gift, therefore, was one of special, if not 
 unique, importance. The Council gratefully accepted an 
 offer so generous, only asking that Miss Owen would add 
 a formal Catalogue, to which her promised monograph 
 on the tribe might be prefixed by way of introduction 
 and further explanation. 
 
 The Collection reached the Society in the Spring of 
 1901. It was exhibited at a Joint Meeting of the Folk- 
 lore Society and the Anthropological Institute held at 
 the rooms of the latter on the 19th June of that year ; and 
 it was then placed in the University Museum of Archae- 
 ology and Ethnology at Cambridge. 
 
 The Monograph and Catalogue now before the reader 
 complete the gift and ensure its permanent utility. The 
 anthropological student with this book in hand will need 
 no other reminder of the value of the collection for the 
 history of culture. Under the name of Sacs and Foxes 
 the Musquakies have played a part by no means con- 
 temptible in the struggle agairrst the white race and its 
 civilization. They have been beaten ; and they are now 
 a dying people. Their blood may be mingled with that 
 of their conquerors, and thus their life may in some 
 measure be perpetuated. But their ancient beliefs and 
 institutions are passing away for ever. We cannot recover 
 their details uncontaminated by European ideas. Miss 
 Owen's account, however, is hardly the less valuable for 
 that. It exhibits them as they were at the close of the 
 nineteenth century, and comprises the more important 
 traditions then preserved of their mythology and previous 
 history. Together with the collection, it affords us a 
 glimpse of the effect on the Musquakies of what Miss 
 Kingsley called in an expressive phrase "the clash of 
 cultures." The introductory paragraph of the Catalogue 
 
Preface, vii 
 
 describes the situation better than any words of mine 
 could do so. It should be read and read again by all 
 who desire to understand how archaic objects and archaic 
 ceremonies and sayings survive among civilized and bar- 
 barous peoples alike ; for it enshrines the very secret of 
 Folk-lore. 
 
 Formal votes of thanks, such as have been passed by 
 the Society, express but a small part of the sense of 
 indebtedness which all students will feel towards Miss 
 Owen for thus placing her collection and her unrivalled 
 knowledge of the Musquakies at the service of science. 
 In the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology 
 and Ethnology the objects will always be accessible for 
 study. It is the earnest wish of the Society, as well as 
 of the donor, that in this way the purpose of the gift 
 may be fulfilled. 
 
 At the suggestion of Dr. Haddon, Miss A. Kingston 
 made a large number of coloured copies of the bead-work 
 patterns and forwarded them to Miss Owen, in order that 
 the latter might endeavour to obtain further informa- 
 tion from the Musquakies concerning them. This Miss 
 Owen was kind enough to do, making a special journey 
 from her home, St. Joseph, Missouri, for the purpose; 
 and much fresh and most valuable information was forth- 
 coming, which would never have been recovered had it 
 not been for the trouble taken by Miss Kingston in 
 making the drawings. The Society is indebted to Dr. 
 H addon not only for the original suggestion which elicited 
 this additional information, but also for preparing, with 
 Miss Kingston's assistance, the technical description of 
 
 the objects figured. 
 
 E. SIDNEY HARTLAND. 
 
 HiGHGARTH, 
 
 Gloucester, Zth August^ 1904. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 FOLKLORE OF THE MUSQUAKIE INDIANS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 •^I. Mythical Origin, 
 ■^11. Achievements and Fate of the Brothers, 12 
 
 /III. Legend and History, - - 17 
 
 IV. Government, - 25 
 
 ^ V. Beliefs, - . . 25 
 
 y VI. Dances, - - - - . - 41 
 
 Religion Dance — Corn - Planting Dance — Totem 
 Dances — Green Corn Dance — The Woman Dance 
 (I-coo-coo-ah) — Bear Dance — Buffalo Dance — Dis- 
 covery Dance — Young Dogs' Dance — Horses' Dance 
 — Scalp Dance — Dead Man's Medicine Dance — The 
 Young Servants' Dance— Birds' Dance — Presents 
 Dance. 
 
 VII. Birth and Infancy, - ... - 63 
 
 V^III. Puberty, - - - 67 
 
 ^ IX. Courtship and Marriage, - - 72 
 
 X. Death, Burial, and Ghost-Carrying, ~ ^ yy 
 
 XI. Folk Tales, - - /- - . . 87 
 
 Girls and Bear — The Grey Wolf and the Orphan 
 Boy — The Woman and the Tree-Ghost — The Man 
 and the Tree- Ghost — The Man and the Young 
 Girl — The Duck-Woman — The Woodpecker- Man — 
 Prairie-Chicken Woman — The Awl — The Girl-with- 
 Spots-on-her-Face — The Young Man that killed him- 
 self and was made alive again. 
 
 CATALOGUE OF MUSQUAKIE BEADWORK 
 
 AND OTHER OBJECTS, - - . . 95 
 
FOLK-LORE OF 
 THE MUSQUAKIE INDIANS. 
 
 I. 
 
 MYTHICAL ORIGIN. 
 
 The Musquakies, as they call themselves, Outagamies or 
 Foxes as they are known to the whites and to the other 
 *> \ Indian tribes within and without the great Algonquin 
 family to which they belong, say that they are descended 
 from a woman whom they call He-nau-ee (Mother). This 
 He-nau-ee came down from the Upper World in a storm, 
 the like of which has not been before or since, the sky 
 and the sea struck each other, and rocks were ground 
 into sand. When He-nau-ee fell into the water on her 
 back the storm ceased, an island, "green [or blue — one 
 word serves for the two colours] and fertile, with berries 
 ready ripened for her use, and trees with acorns to make 
 her bread, and sweet white roots easy to dig," rose up 
 under her. On it, she told her children, she lived for 
 eighty days. On the eightieth day she gave birth to 
 two sons, who grew to manhood in a few hours, received 
 some instruction from their mother, built a boat, and at 
 sundown paddled over to the mainland, leaving her 
 behind, because "she, the pleasant of speech and beauti- 
 ful of face, looked from her eyes so terribly that they, 
 the unfearing, sweated with fear." When they touched 
 shore, they turned to see if she by magic was able to 
 
2 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 follow, and saw her instead sinking with her island 
 beneath the waves. 
 
 The Brothers ran a little way. When they stopped, 
 the larger. Hot Hand, said to the smaller, Cold Hand: 
 "I smell something I do not like; let us stop and fight 
 with it.'' Cold Hand said : " Let us stop and fight with 
 it." Then each tore up a young tree, for many trees 
 grew on top of rocks in that place, stripped it of 
 branches, smoothed and shaped it with the finger-nails, 
 split the end with the eye [I don't know what this means, 
 nobody would explain], fitted-in stone torn by the hand 
 and bitten by the teeth, and made fast by the hair 
 from his scalp-lock. The hair was not enough, so they 
 felt poor in mind till a deer came, saying, " I give you," 
 and gave them sinew from his leg. With the sinew the 
 stone was made fast, a good spear was made, for not 
 yet had the old women come to teach the Brothers to 
 make bows. 
 
 The black thing was coming ; they smelled him. Cold 
 Hand said : " Shall I go ?" Hot Hand said : "The stink- 
 ing meat is for me to take." He spat on his spear. It 
 was sharp ; it took the Black Wolf coming, in the throat, 
 in the breast, in the belly. Black Wolf could not make 
 medicine ; he was very sick. He said : " Take the skin." 
 Hot Hand took the fine black skin. Naked, Black Wolf 
 ran away. Hot Hand hung the skin on a tree, he had 
 no wife to throw it to. Black Wolf, far off, danced and 
 sang his song ; the medicine cured him. At night he 
 stole the skin. 
 
 The Brothers went on with a bad heart; they wanted 
 the skin. After a while Cold Hand said : " I smell some- 
 thing I do not like ; let us stop and fight with it." Hot 
 Hand said : " Let us stop and fight with it." Cold Hand 
 spat on his spear ; it was sharp ; it took Black Wolf 
 coming, in the throat, in the breast, in the belly. Black 
 Wolf was very sick. He said : " Take the skin." Cold 
 
Mythical Origin, 3 
 
 Hand hung the skin on his spear. Black Wolf ran 
 away ; he danced, he sang his song ; the medicine cured 
 him. The Brothers slept; he tried to steal the skin. 
 The spear said : " Come up ! come up ! " Cold Hand 
 waked. Black Wolf ran away ; he was very cold. 
 
 Hot Hand said : " Give me the black skin. I took it." 
 Cold Hand gave it They went on. Hot Hand made 
 the skin into a bundle; he tied it with grass, and with 
 grass bound it upon his back. They crossed a river. 
 Black Wolf was there ; his medicine made the water 
 black ; he hid in it, he followed the brothers, he cut the 
 grass ropes, he stole the skin, he made himself small, as 
 fish-spawn he went down the river. Hot Hand was on 
 the bank ; he felt his back, he was ashamed that the 
 skin was gone. He went on, not talking. When it was 
 night he put himself to dream ; he dreamed of the lake 
 into which the river flowed ; he saw Black Wolf in the 
 lake. He waked ; he went on with his brother. They 
 went to the lake. Hot Hand fought with Black Wolf; 
 he was at the water's edge; he had no time to make 
 medicine, to change. Hot Hand took him in the throat, 
 in the breast, in the belly. Black Wolf gave up the 
 skin. At night he stole it from under Hot Hand's head. 
 He made himself small like a young water-rat ; he hid 
 in the mud of the lake. 
 
 In the morning the Brothers went on ; they went along 
 the lake shore, for they could see the town of old women. 
 They had no boat, no tree to make a boat. They made 
 signs to the old women, but they came not. 
 
 In the day Cold Hand said : " I smell the wolf; let 
 us stop and fight with him." He struck his spear into 
 mud. fHe brought up Black Wolf on his spear; he 
 spoiled his medicine. The spear made the rat-skin a 
 wolf-skin ; he took it away with him. At night he hung 
 it on the spear. Black Wolf could not take it off. 
 
 In the morning Hot Hand said : '* Qi\\^ it to me ; it 
 
4 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 is mine." Cold Hand gave it to him. They walked by 
 the lake. Black Wolf made himself into a vapour. The 
 vapour rolled before the wind ; it rolled past the Brothers; 
 it took away the skin Hot Hand had tied on his shoulders. 
 The vapour rolled over the lake ; it changed to a louse; 
 the louse went under the wing of a duck swimming on 
 the lake. The duck swam to the middle of the lake ; 
 she dived to the bottom. Cold Hand said : " Let Black 
 Wolf go ; he has had enough." Hot Hand was ashamed. 
 He said : " Go first, brother ; you are first." Cold Hand 
 would not go first. 
 
 They stopped ; they called the old women. The old 
 women would not help them. When the old women 
 would not help them, the bird Hee-wa-nee-ka-kee came 
 flying out of the woods with a twig ; she beat on the 
 twig till it was hollow ; she blew on it with her breath 
 till it was large ; she made it a boat. The Brothers 
 took the boat ; they made an oar ; they rowed on the 
 lake. A dreadful large snake was in the lake ; it rose 
 up through the water ; it showed its hard, white scales 
 below its head with deer's horns ; it had eyes dreadful 
 with fire ; it had teeth ; it spat fire ; it burned the 
 Brothers. Hot Hand, his tears had not come ; he made 
 medicine with spittle ; he spat in the snake's mouth ; he 
 spat on his burns ; he spat on his brother's burns ; he 
 sent the snake to the bottom of the lake ; he kept it 
 there ; he was well, his brother was well. 
 
 They went to the land ; they saw old women digging 
 in a field. "Give to us," they said to the old women. 
 The old women said, "Yes" to them. To themselves 
 the old women said : " These men are meat for the pots. 
 Let us kill them." The Brothers heard them, but gave 
 no sign (kept a hard face). "Take from the heap of 
 roots on the ground," said the old women. They had 
 bones in their hands to strike with. The Brothers bent 
 down; they had their spears over their shoulders. The 
 
Mythical Origin, S 
 
 spears caught the blows of the old women. The old 
 women turned to stone. 
 
 The Brothers went on. 
 
 They saw other old women. The old women were 
 cooking. " I smell something I like," said the Brothers ; 
 "give it." "Yes," said the old women. To themselves, 
 the old women said : " These men are meat for the pots. 
 Let us kill them." The Brothers heard them. " Take 
 from the pot," said the old women. They had firebrands 
 in their hands to strike with. "We are meat for the 
 pot," said the Brothers ; " we will go in, if you will go 
 in when we come out." " We will go in when you come 
 out," said the old women. The Brothers went into the 
 pot, they cooled it with their breath, for their tears had 
 not yet come. They stayed in the pot. Then they said : 
 " It is time to get out." They jumped out. They said 
 to the old women : " Get in, it is your turn." The old 
 women were afraid, they would not go into the pot. 
 The Brothers pushed them in. The old women were 
 burned up, all but their thigh-bones. The thigh-bones 
 the Brothers took with them. 
 
 They came to two old women winnowing parched 
 corn, tossing it in a buffalo- robe. " I smell something I 
 like; give it," said the Brothers. "Yes," said the old 
 women. To themselves they said : " These men are meat 
 for the pot. Let us kill them." The Brothers heard, 
 they kept a hard face. The old women lowered the 
 robe to the ground. The corn was in the middle of it. 
 " Take," said the old women. The Brothers stepped on 
 the robe. The old women tossed it high, brought it hard 
 against the ground. The Brothers' spears struck the 
 ground first, the Brothers came down softly on their feet. 
 The spears touched the old women, turned them into 
 corn-worms. 
 
 The Brothers went on, taking the robe with them. 
 
 They came to two old women pounding meal. Their 
 
6 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 mill was a hollow log set on a stone. They ^ pounded 
 with hickory staves. " I smell something I like ;'give it," 
 said the Brothers. "Yes," said the old women. To 
 themselves they said : " These men are meat for the pot. 
 Let us kill them." The Brothers kept a hard face. * The 
 old women took the staves from the mill. "Take from 
 the mill," said the old women. The Brothers stoopefd 
 over the mill. The staves of the old women struck hafd^ 
 but the spears caught the blows. The old women wer<l 
 thrown into the meal, they became weevils in the mealv- 
 
 The Brothers took the mill, they poured out the meal;' 
 they covered the top of the mill with the buffalo-hide, 
 they played on the hide with the thigh-bones, they went 
 on, drumming and singing. 
 
 Beasts and birds heard the drumming and singing, they 
 came to the Brothers. The ones with bad heart fought 
 the Brothers. The Brothers killed many. Some went 
 away to make medicine for the hurts they had. The 
 Brothers had no hurts. 
 
 They went into a valley. Four days and four nights 
 (four suns, four sleeps) they were in the valley. Some- 
 thing came at night, it tore the drum-head, it tore the 
 clothes of the brothers, it growled, it was Moo-in, the 
 bear. They awakened, they ran, they saw no bear, by 
 day they saw a fat old man sitting. They said : " Uncle, 
 did you see a bear.?" He looked at his paunch, he said, 
 " Grandfathers, I see only myself" The last morning. 
 Cold Hand said : " Brother, I see a fat bear at night, I 
 see a fat man in the morning. There is grease in the 
 tracks of the bear, let us see if there is grease in the 
 tracks of the man." " Let us see," said Hot Hand. So 
 when they came up to the man, and he said, "I see 
 only myself," Cold Hand said : " See my spear, it is 
 asking for you " ; and he made the spear stand alone, he 
 made it walk, he made it bend toward the old man. The 
 fat old man ran, there was grease in his tracks. By 
 
Mythical Origin, 7 
 
 that they knew he had a devil in his nose, that he could 
 have many shapes at night. Cold Hand ran, he caught 
 the fat old man, he killed him before he could make 
 medicine, he scalped him. 
 
 The Brothers went on. 
 
 Hot Hand said: "I struck first." [Meaning that he 
 touched the dead body first. This blow is the coup which 
 entitles whosoever gives it to the scalp, without any 
 consideration for the one who dealt the death-stroke.] 
 Cold Hand gave him the scalp. 
 
 They came to a wigwam made of elm-bark. An old 
 man was in the wigwam by a great fire. He watched 
 a stone pot that was in the midst of the fire. " I smell 
 something I like; give it," said the Brothers. "Take 
 it," said the old man, " if you will swallow as I pour, 
 without cooling." " Give it," they said. The old man 
 poured from the pot for Hot Hand, for Cold Hand. They 
 drank, they had a glad heart, the broth did not burn 
 them. "Let us make a trial," said the old man. "If I 
 win, all is mine ; if you win, all is yours." The Brothers 
 said : " Let us make a trial." They tied the door, they 
 piled wood on the fire. The old man sweated. The 
 old man smoked. He made medicine, but he panted 
 and thirsted. His roll of furs (on which he sat) was 
 singed. The Brothers said : " We are not warm enough." 
 They piled wood on the fire. The water in the jar 
 boiled. The old man drank it, groaning. He screamed. 
 "We are not warm enough," said the Brothers. They 
 piled wood on the fire. The old man became a crow, 
 he flew up toward the smoke-hole. [A wigwam has no 
 outlet for the smoke of the fire built on its floor, but a 
 hole in the centre of the roof] The smoke strangled 
 the crow, he fell and was burned up. The wigwam 
 caught fire and burned up. The Brothers jumped out of 
 the flames, they waited till the fire went out. They 
 stirred the ashes with their spears, they found a crow's 
 
8 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 heart, they found a crow's neck-bpne. For good luck, 
 they took them. 
 
 They went on. 
 
 At night, they slept in a wood. The trees were devils, 
 they walked, they became men and women, the women 
 made love to the Brothers; when the Brothers would 
 not have them, they fought, the men-devils fought to 
 help them. The Brothers could not make a fire to drive 
 away the devils, the brush would not bum, but they 
 fought with their spears, they overthrew, they pierced. 
 By day, the devils were trees. Then the Brothers brought 
 wood, they burned the trees. Then they made medicine, 
 they made themselves well. They slept. 
 
 In the morning, they went on. 
 
 They saw an antelope. All day, they ran after it. It 
 jumped over a ravine, it was gone. The Brothers jumped, 
 they fell into the ravine, they fell through the bottom 
 of it into a cave. The cave had in it the Ancestors 
 [the ancestral animals]. The Ancestors sat round a fire. 
 The Brothers saluted them, beginning with the Musquakie 
 (Fox) and ending with the Ah-tha-ba-nee (Raccoon). 
 Cold Hand saluted first. When the Brothers went down, 
 Hot Hand fell on his back, Cold Hand fell on his feet, 
 he saluted. Grandfather Fox (Hee-to-gwaw-Mus-qua-kie) 
 saluted before the other Animals. Grandfather Raccoon 
 (Hee-to-gwa- Ah-tha-ba-nee) saluted last. These were the 
 Ancestors, the Animals : Fox (Mus-qua-kie), Eagle 
 (Sclar), Bear (Moocha), Beaver (Ha-ma-qua), Fish (Na-ma- 
 thee), Antelope (Esqua-ba-qua-wah-see-qua-thee-way), 
 Raccoon (Ah-tha-ba-nee). 
 
 Let us make them ma-coupee [full of magic, fetish. 
 C^n't translate exactly]. Grandfather Fox said it. 
 
 "No," said the other Animals. "They will know too 
 much, they will trouble us." 
 
 They will help us," said Grandfather Fox. 
 
 They will help us," said Grandfather Antelope. "It 
 
 li 
 
 n 
 
Mythical Origin, g^ 
 
 is promised. They wjill have a new place. I dreamed 
 it" 
 
 "Make them ma-coupeel^ said the Animals. 
 
 Grandfather Raccoon filled the pipe and gave it to 
 Grandfather Fox. Grandfather Fox smoked. He gave 
 the pipe to Grandfather Eagle. The Animals smoked 
 in turn, Grandfather Raccoon last. He offered the pipe 
 to Cold Hand. Cold Hand said: "To him first, he is 
 Elder Brother." Hot Hand had it first, he passed it in 
 his right hand across his left to Cold Hand, he fell down 
 asleep. At the first whiff, Cold Hand trembled ; at the 
 second, he was faint ; at the third, he was blind ; at the 
 fourth, he was breathless. He handed back the pipe as 
 he was falling, he slept. 
 
 The Animals cut out their hearts, they cut out their 
 livers, their lungs, their stomachs, their bowels, they puri- 
 fied all with water and the smoke of medicine, they 
 returned them to the bodies. The Brothers slept a moon 
 (twenty-seven days). They had dreams. The dreams 
 told of the people to come, the Brothers' people. They 
 awoke, they stretched themselves, they stood up. The 
 Animals said : " Ho, Brothers." They were brothers to 
 the Animals [received as equals by the Animals]. Their 
 hearts were large, they were happy; they were sad in 
 knowledge, their tears came. They remembered their 
 dreams, they stood in a dark place together and talked 
 of the dreams, they asked the Animals : " Do we go 
 back ? Do we go to the upper world ? " " Not now," said 
 the Animals, " you are not finished." The Animals made 
 the Brothers fast nine days. The Brothers could not 
 feel the sun, the Animals told them the days. The 
 Brothers dreamed. They dreamed of their medicine [the 
 fetish each was to wefer under his left arm]. The fast 
 ended, the Brothers were instructed. They learned the 
 ceremonials for puberty, they learned the laws for the 
 government of a tribe, they learned the laws of the secret 
 
,io Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 societies, they learned the dances,, they learned all good 
 magic, they learned to counteract the bad magic that 
 had been taught to the tribes already made, by little 
 devils (stha-och) and great devils (meitche-manito-og). 
 
 Eighty days from the day of the chase of the ante- 
 lope, the Brothers were sent back. They were sent back 
 to the Middle World. An eagle came down through 
 the smoke-hple. The Animals called the eagle, they set 
 the Brothers on him. The eagle flew up, he flew down, 
 he sat under a tree. "Strip off the branches," he said to 
 the Brothers. " Make a house of the branches." He 
 flew away. They stripped off the branches, they made 
 a house of the branches, a woven wee-ka-ya-up. They 
 sat down in it, they said: **What is this for?" When 
 they had sat awhile, Hot Hand said : " I got a louse 
 from that bird." He scratched a lump swelling on his 
 shoulder. " I got a louse from that bird," said Cold 
 Hand. He scratched a lump on his side. The lump 
 broke. Hot Hand took out a boy. The lump broke. 
 Cold Hand took out a girl. The boy was the size of a 
 duck's Q^'g, The girl was the size of a plover's ^g'g. 
 They grew to be man and woman that day, they were 
 given each other in marriage. In a year they had seven 
 sons and seven daughters. From the seven sons and 
 seven daughters came the seven clans of the Musquakies. 
 The seven clans are named for the seven ancestral animals. 
 The boy that was the first of the clan started the 
 name. The seven boys that came first could each take 
 the shape of his Animal (Totem). The oldest boy was 
 a Mus-qua-kie, he gave his name to his clan, to the 
 tribe; the others were under him. His father was Hee- 
 to-gwaw (Grandfather), his mother was Hee-coo-nee 
 (Grandmother). 
 
 The Brothers taught the boy and girl. They told 
 them all the laws of the Animals. The boy and girl 
 learned all the laws. Then the Brothers went on. They 
 
Mythical Origin, ii* 
 
 went away to kill or conquer all the demons (wo-skay- 
 pee-sku-nee-og), all the little devils^ (stha-wah) and all 
 the great devils (mitche-manito-wah), they left the boy 
 and girl to build up the tribe. 
 
 ^Creatures that make diseases in individual bodies. Great devils bring 
 wars and pestilence, all the great evils. Demons are vampires, wer-wolves, 
 nightmares, etc. 
 
II. 
 
 ACHIEVEMENTS AND FATE OF THE 
 
 BROTHERS. 
 
 The Brothers went on. They went on to kill or 
 conquer all the demons and devils. They saw a demon. 
 He had no body; he was all head. He had teeth like 
 bread-stones [the granite boulders on which the women 
 mould their bread]. His mouth was a man's length, his 
 nose high as a wild-cat's back, his eyebrows were great 
 as a wolf-skin, his hair like a bull buffalo's hung down, 
 his eye-holes eyeless a shield's size were. He slept. 
 He slept where he wallowed a hole, his mouth open, his 
 nose scenting prey a day's journey off. The sun made 
 him sleep. He slept from sun up to sundown if no 
 prey came. His prey was young children. He drew 
 them by his tongue. His tongue had a snake's head 
 at the end. He chewed the children, he sucked the 
 blood, he spat them out. They became little devils, 
 little devils that fly into the nose, the throat, the belly, 
 and make the people sick and of bad heart, little devils 
 no man can see but the medicine-man. 
 
 The Brothers sounded the war-cry — the cry the 
 Animals taught them. The demon was far off, his 
 name was Kee. He heard the Brothers ; he rolled over 
 hills and hollows four days. He came to them. Hot 
 Hand struck first. Kee sang his song. The spear 
 struck his teeth, it jumped back, it jumped back many 
 
Achievements and Fate of the Brothers, 13 
 
 times. Cold Hand shed a tear on his spear ; the spear 
 told him to shed it. He drove the spear into Kee's 
 mouth. He struck, all Kee's upper teeth fell in. He 
 struck, all Kee's lower teeth fell in. He struck, Kee*s 
 tongue fell in ; it leaped from his mouth ; it hissed ; it 
 slipped in among the bushes. Hot Hand counted coup 
 on Kee ; but Kee was not dead, he rolled away, bleeding. 
 His blood made biting, small beasts. Cold Hand said 
 to Kee : " Go where the sun is not." Kee went there. 
 He was the first to go. Now all bad men go. Hot 
 Hand said : " I took him, he is mine." " I have dreamed. 
 He is to you always," Cold Hand said. Cold Hand did 
 not dream, he heard the spear talk. 
 
 The Brothers went on. 
 
 They fought more demons, they sent them to the place 
 where the sun was not. The demons were blood-suckers. 
 A demon was a leg, tall as a tree. He trampled 
 people, the foot sucked blood. A demon was an arm, 
 long as a blacksnake, the hand sucked blood. A demon 
 was an ear, great as a hillside. The ear sucked in 
 children, it sucked their blood. They fell out dry as 
 old wood, they had moss on them, they were devils. 
 All fought. The Brothers sent them to the place. 
 
 The Brothers went on. 
 
 They fought three women. The women had no 
 heads. They had eyes in their breasts, they had 
 mouths in their bellies. The women had spears. They 
 fought hard ; they gave out an odour. The Brothers fell 
 down from the odour. Cold Hand said "Strike!" to his 
 spear. The spear struck, it killed the women. The 
 ghosts went to the place. 
 
 The Brothers went on. 
 
 They took many demons, many great devils, many 
 small devils. The demons and devils could not hide 
 well enough. The Brothers said: "All the Petuns, all 
 the Ho-da-su-nee, all the people feared the demons and 
 
14 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 the devils, let us go to them for our presents." The 
 people hated the Brothers ; they were jealous ; the 
 medicine-men made them jealous, they made them afraid. 
 The people called all the demons and devils left, all 
 the medicine-men, all the birds and beasts that knew 
 sorcery [bad medicine, ma-cou-pee-sku-nee]. They went 
 to a wood-of-trees-that-walk. They stayed all night ; 
 they had a council without a fire. Then they dared 
 the Brothers with shouts. The wood-of-trees-that-walk 
 would fall on the Brothers. The Brothers ran to the 
 shouts. They met three women. The women gave 
 them bows, and arrows that came back to the bows. 
 The Brothers conquered many with the bows and 
 arrows. They stood far off from the wood-of-trees-that- 
 walk, and shot with the arrows that came back to them. 
 They sang their song ; they made the demons and 
 devils they shot go to the place. The other demons 
 and devils and the people ran away from the wood-of- 
 trees-that-walk. They ran away at night. In the 
 morning they had a council. They sent away Mar- 
 ko-ga, the owl, to find the demons, Chee-nau-og, the 
 makers of storms, eaters of men, with ice hearts, with 
 hands cold as frost. The owl found the Chee-nau-og, 
 he told them, then he was ashamed, he hid himself, 
 he comes by day no more. The Chee-nau-og came ; 
 they fought the Brothers. Hot Hand conquered 
 many ; Cold Hand could not conquer. The Chee-nau-og 
 made a storm — rain and snow — between the Brothers. 
 They killed Cold Hand. Hot Hand did not know. He 
 sang his song ; he went on. Cold Hand did not come 
 up. 
 
 Hot Hand went on. 
 
 He waited. He built a house there. He sat in the 
 house looking out. 
 
 He searched. He could not find Cold Hand. The 
 Chee-nau-og, running away, threw snowstorms behind 
 
Achievements and Fate of the Brothers, 1 5 
 
 them; he could not find Cold Hand in the storms. His 
 heart was weak ; he could not make medicine strong 
 enough to find Cold Hand. If he had found the body 
 he could have called back the soul. He went back to 
 his house he made. He sat down in the door; he 
 wept and groaned. He sobbed and sighed, till the 
 earth trembled and trees fell down. He sighed till the 
 flat earth drew up into hills; he wept till his tears 
 made rivers between the hills. 
 
 The people were frightened. They said to the 
 medicine-men : " Make the dead alive ! Be quick ! This 
 fellow we cannot kill will tear the world to pieces. Be 
 quick." The medicine-men said : " We will make the 
 dead alive.'' They worked hard for four days and four 
 nights ; they made him alive ; they sent him to his 
 brother. The brother was not pleased. Hot Hand said : 
 " I am ashamed. They have heard me mourn. Every- 
 thing has heard me mourn. I have lifted the ground 
 into hills, I have torn up trees, I have made rivers of 
 tears, I have groaned like a herd of bulls. You should 
 have come sooner." Hot Hand stood up, he went into 
 his house, and pulled [shut] the door. Cold Hand sat 
 down outside the door. He was poor in mind ; he did 
 not know what was the thing to do, for he had not 
 back the spear; he had not back the arrows and the 
 bow. He stayed there. Hot Hand waited. He waited 
 a long time. Then he pulled back the door-skin a 
 little, and handed out a kettle, fire-sticks, tobacco, and 
 a little whistle to call ghosts. Cold Hand took the 
 things. He went away from that place. He followed 
 the sun. The storms were gone. He went faster than 
 the sun. He sat down on the edge of the world to 
 dream. When he had dreamed he made a place for 
 good souls. Before that they had no place; they 
 blew about in the wind. Since that time death has 
 been better than life. 
 
1 6 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 Hot Hand went on. 
 
 He killed many little devils of bad dreams and 
 disease ; he conquered many demons, but he did not 
 like the people any more. He was poor in heart for 
 Cold Hand. He followed the sun over the road of 
 ghosts ; he sat down and dreamed of the good place 
 of Cold Hand. He went on. He sat down in the 
 road where it divided. He did not get up ; he was 
 tired. He is there now. He points the way to his 
 brother's place to good souls; he points the way to 
 the cold, wet place of the demons and devils to bad 
 souls. 
 
III. 
 
 LEGEND AND HISTORY. 
 
 Precisely when the Musquakies associated themselves 
 with the Sacs, is not set down on the "winter counts," 
 as the hieroglyphics painted on skins or bark as memo- 
 randa for the historians and poets are called. The first 
 white settlers stated they found them separate nations 
 in Canada. The missionaries, AUouez, Andr6, and Mar- 
 quette, preached to them as distinct tribes on the banks 
 of Lake Superior, in 1669, i^70> 1671. La Salle and 
 Hennepin quarrelled with the Outagamies, as Hennepin 
 called them, in 1679, and afterwards made a feast for 
 them. No mention is made of Sacs being concerned 
 with either wrangle or feast. Parkman, referring to the 
 " Relation de la d^faite des Renards par les Sauvages 
 Hurons et Iroquois le 28 F6v., 1732" {Archives de la 
 Marine)^ which gives an account of the slaughter of the 
 Outagamies in their villages along the Wisconsin River 
 by bands of Iroquois, Hurons, and Ottawas, adds : " It 
 may be well, however, to mention another story, often 
 repeated, touching these dark days of the Outagamies. 
 It is to the effect that a French trader named Marin, 
 whom they had incensed by levying blackmail from him, 
 raised a party of Indians, with whose aid he surprised 
 and defeated the ^unhappy tribe at the Little Butte des 
 Morts, that they retired to the Great Butte des Morts, 
 higher up the Fox River, and that Marin here attacked 
 
 6 
 
1 8 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 them again, killing or capturing the whole. Extravagant 
 as the story may seem, it may have some foundation, 
 though various dates, from 1725 to 1746 are assigned 
 to the alleged exploit, and contemporary documents are 
 silent concerning it. It is certain that the Outagamies 
 were not destroyed, as the tribe exists to this day. 
 
 "In 1736 it was reported that sixty or eighty Outa- 
 gamie warriors were still alive {Memorie sur le Canada^ . 
 1736). Their women, who when hard pushed would fight 
 like furies, were relatively numerous and tolerably pro- 
 lific, and their villages were full of sturdy boys, likely 
 to be dangerous in a few years. Feeling their losses 
 and their weakness, the survivors of the tribe incor- 
 porated themselves with their kindred and neighbors, 
 the Sacs, Sakis, or Saukies, the two forming henceforth 
 one tribe, afterwards known to the Americans as the 
 Sacs and Foxes. . . ." 
 
 In a footnote he adds, " Outagamie is Algonquin for 
 Fox. . . . They called themselves Musquakies, which 
 is said to mean red earth, and to be derived from 
 the color of the soil near one of their villages." 
 
 As to this last statement, I don't know what Algon- 
 quin tongues may call a fox "Outagamie," I do know, 
 however, that *• Musquakie" means "Fox,'' whether refer- 
 ence is made to the animal or the tribesman, in Saukie, 
 Kickapoo, and Musquakie, though the Saukies (Saukie- 
 ock, to speak the plural as they do) say jokingly that 
 Geechee Manito-ah made the Saukie out of yellow clay 
 and the Squawkie out of red. Furthermore, the Mus- 
 quakies claim that they never had any other name than 
 Musquakie, that their neighbours called them Outa- 
 gamie-ock, other-side-of-the-river-people, when they lived 
 on Fox River. They deny emphatically that they 
 received the name ** Fox " only after they were driven 
 to the river by the Iroquois. 
 
 Here is the story repeated four times a year by the 
 
Legend and History, 19 
 
 tribal historian, at the council-fire : After the Brothers 
 went away, the parents of the seven sons and seven 
 daughters dwelt quietly in the wood near the sea-shore. 
 They lived to see many generations of their descendants, 
 and to hear their warrior-grandsons boast how they had 
 harried the wicked tribes that requited evil for good 
 with the Brothers. Among these warriors was a young 
 sub-chief called Bull Buffalo [a posthumous child pro- 
 bably, though this is not in the recital, for "the-man- 
 who-never-has-seen-his-father '' is always a prophet]. Bull 
 Buffalo, at the time of his nine days' fast, had a vision 
 which showed him the young tribe moving westward, 
 meeting and associating itself with an older people, as 
 had been foretold in the beginning by the Brothers. 
 The "sign" was to be a white buffalo which should 
 appear and run back and forth between the Musquakies 
 and the encampment they were to approach, and then 
 disappear as mysteriously as it came. All this came 
 to pass, the historians assure us ; and the two tribes 
 were as one until, in 1833, the Musquakies returned to 
 that part of the country of the Illinois now known as 
 the State of Iowa. 
 
 The more prosaic account of the Sacs is that a band 
 of the Musquakies rebelled against a cross old chief, 
 set out to seek their fortune, wheedled a company of 
 girls whom they found gathering blackberries, into 
 marrying them, went home to live with their mothers- 
 in-law and, eventually, assembled all their poor relations 
 under the tent-poles of their prosperous relatives-by- 
 marriage. 
 
 I do not believe that this last story is intended to 
 be taken seriously. The Sacs are, in contrast with their 
 saturnine neighbours, the Kickapoos, and their rather 
 grave allies, the Musquakies, a very waggish people, 
 delighting in practical jokes and anecdotes nicely calcu- 
 lated to rouse vehement protests and denials from the 
 
20 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 subject of them. The one point in favour of the state- 
 ment is that the Musquakies, although they speak of 
 the Fox as their most revered totem, have their chiefs 
 from the Eagle Clan as do the Sacs from their Eagle 
 Clan. Even this, however, is not conclusive. Bull 
 Buffalo, the prophet, is spoken of as a sub-chief Judging 
 from his name, he must have belonged to a Buffalo clan. 
 There is no clan of that totem now, nor any tradition 
 of one ; but how else could he have come by the name ? 
 To be sure, it is possible that the Bear clan may have 
 included in its nomenclature all the larger game animals ; 
 but it is not probable. 
 
 On one fact all stories agree : that the Hurons and 
 Iroquois, with some assistance from those pale-faces of 
 whom it is said that upon landing in America they "fell 
 on their knees and then on the aborigines," found the 
 tribes allied not amalgamated, and drove them inch by 
 inch westward to the shores of Lake Superior, and there, 
 the French, unwilling that their strength should be added 
 to that of the red men already in possession, attacked 
 them, and crowded them southward, along the valley of the 
 Mississippi. From that last ill came good. In the 
 great wooded prairies of that rich basin, they found game 
 and food in abundance, the climate was more genial 
 than any to which they had been accustomed, the water 
 of the rivers was pure and many medicinal springs were 
 found, so that in their new environment they had 
 much comfort and their numbers multiplied in spite of 
 occasional warfare with the Dakotahs, their kinsfolk the 
 Kickapoos and Chippeways, their friends of other days 
 the Shawnees, and bands of their ancient enemies the 
 Iroquois, whom they blessed the British for smiting. 
 
 So well did they love the British for breaking the 
 power of these tyrants of the red races that they took 
 no part with Pontiac when he persuaded the Sacs to 
 join his conspiracy in 1763, and in 1776 and 1812 they 
 
Legend and History, 21 
 
 gave up the safe role of neutrals and fought valiantly 
 for King George and the Regent. 
 
 From 1 8 14 to 1832 they were comparatively peaceful, 
 the occasional hair-lifting of their relatives and neighbours 
 being on so small a scale as to count for nothing more 
 than a family jar. But, in 1832, under the leadership of 
 Black Hawk, the Sac chieftain, they rose once more 
 against the United States, this time, for a wrong so 
 grievous that they must have the sympathy of all who 
 love fair dealing. A few years before, a member of the 
 allied tribes killed a companion. The white government 
 agent sent him to St. Louis to be tried for murder. 
 According to their custom, the relatives of the prisoner 
 sought to buy his life from the relatives of the dead 
 man ; but the agent had taken the matter out of their 
 hands. The relatives supposed there was but one way 
 of settling such difficulties; consequently, they entrusted 
 the bundle of rich furs, beadwork and wampum to 
 certain sub-chiefs, and sent them to St. Louis. There^ 
 the sub-chiefs were spoken fair by some in authority, 
 their presents were received, they were offered such hos- 
 pitalities as dram-shops afford and gave themselves up 
 to the enjoyment of them. At the end of a month, 
 they returned to the tribes, a sickly, shame-faced, sorry 
 lot. When questioned, they confessed that they were 
 drunk for a week, at the end of this time, they became 
 sober enough to ask that the prisoner they had, as they 
 thought, paid for, be delivered to them. His prison 
 door was thrown open, but when he passed through it 
 he was shot down. Something was said about his having 
 had a trial, but the sub-chiefs were still too muddled by 
 their potations to understand, or even to take charge of 
 the body or know what disposition was made of it. The 
 worst of their mischief they did not confess. Perhaps 
 they were not aware that they had committed it. 
 Months later, the head chiefs were confronted with a 
 
22 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 document which vested the title of their best lands^ 
 their hunting-grounds, the sites of their principal villages 
 and, most dreadful of all, their Jjjurying-grounds, in white 
 men unknown to them. This paper was signed by the 
 sub-chiefs, that is, each of them had scratched a cross 
 on it in the presence of witnesses. The head-chiefs and 
 their councils protested that sub-chiefs had no power and 
 authority to make either deeds or treaties, and the 
 matter rested for a while. Finally an order with soldiers 
 behind it came for the Indians to move on. The two 
 tribes, with Black Hawk, the war-chief elected by them, 
 at their head, in spite of the warnings of Keokuk, the 
 shrewdest of the chiefs, resisted the order, and, as a 
 preliminary, killed the agent and several liquor-dealers 
 who infested the land in dispute. The result was inevi- 
 table. The red men, as usual, were overcome and driven 
 from their homes, Christian civilisation filled their place 
 in what is now known as the State of Iowa, and the 
 savages were located on what is now known as the 
 Brown County (Kansas) Indian Reservation. All the 
 Sacs submitted to the change, but the older Musquakies 
 were not allowed to sit down and eat out their hearts 
 with home-sickness. There followed what is known as 
 the " Revolt of the Squaws." This was the cause of it : 
 In the cold, wet Spring of 1831, nearly all the children 
 of the two tribes had the measles, a disease introduced 
 by the white settlers, and treated by the Indian medicine- 
 women with the universal remedy, an hour or two in the 
 sweat-lodge followed by a cold bath. Nearly every child 
 died and was buried, not with the older people on the 
 hill-tops, but in the path leading from the wigwams to 
 the river. The little children as well as the very aged, 
 so the Indians believe, cannot find their way to the Spirit 
 Land, they must be led by their next of kin, and the 
 freed spirit of the adult must linger near its former home 
 until started down the ghost-road by the ghost-carrier. 
 
Legend and History, 23 
 
 The mother who dies far from her baby's grave loses 
 her darling for ever, the mother who keeps near it has 
 two chances for happiness. As she goes over the grave 
 in the path, she may absorb the little soul and have it 
 born again of her body ; or if this is denied her, she 
 may have the little spirit flit to and fro as she goes 
 about her work, though it may not enter her habitation. 
 **We go back to the children,'* said the bereaved Mus- 
 quakie mothers, "the men may go or stay." They set 
 out, and the men followed and overtook them. 
 
 They made no effort to regain their rich fields and 
 wooded hills. They took an humble place along the 
 river banks, on the marshy flats from which the sun 
 stewed the pestilent vapors that engendered ague and all 
 the malignant fevers attendant upon malaria, and lived 
 there with their baby-ghosts and their dire poverty, 
 unmolested by the white people until the village of Tama 
 expanded into a city and the wet land was worth drain- 
 ing and dividing into town lots. Then, it was too late 
 for the white man to lift the burden of ownership. The 
 Musquakies had deeds to their mud and malaria. They 
 had made a little money by hunting water- fowl and 
 muskrats, fishing, basket-weaving and other simple arts, 
 and with it they had bought from the government the 
 tract so long considered worthless, at the rate of six 
 shillings the acre. Later, from discontented settlers, they 
 purchased five farms lying across the low hills and 
 shallow valleys. Still later. Providence sent them a friend 
 in the person of an agent who helped them to fill out 
 the tale of three thousand acres, their present holdings, 
 claiming and obtaining for them a portion of the sum 
 paid for the State of Iowa so unwillingly relinquished by 
 the Sacs and Foxes. The sum though small when the 
 land was ceded, had been at interest for over half a 
 century, and interest and principal were more than 
 enough to buy back all the old paths to the river, all 
 
24 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 the old grave-sites on the hills, the old. dance-grounds 
 and some, at least, of the fields where the sacreS corn 
 for the meal of sacrifice was planted. From being the 
 humblest of the red people, refugees who oftentimes knew 
 what hospitality was from a poignant experience of what 
 it was not, the Musquakies have become secure landed 
 proprietors who feel their importance. They have theii* 
 summer homes of elm-bark on the hills and their winter 
 homes of closely woven tules covered with cowskins 
 along the river bank ; they have some money at interest ; 
 they can, and do, offer the hospitality their souls delight 
 in — indeed, their guests are their undoing though they 
 will not acknowledge it. Wily Pottowattomies have 
 taught their young men to gamble away their ponies 
 and ornaments at faro, and a white visitor started an 
 epidemic of smallpox, that has reduced their numbers, 
 in the last year, from four to three hundred men, women 
 and children. 
 
IV. 
 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 The tribe is a limited monarchy. Its head is an here- 
 ditary chief of the Eagle Clan. Its parliament is the 
 head-chiefs council and the councils of the sub-chiefs 
 . who preside over the seven clans into which the tribe is 
 divided. Its cabinet is the body of "Honourable 
 Women." 
 
 The descent of the headship is from father to son, 
 though, as tribal history attests, there was a time when 
 the inheritance passed over a man's children to his sister's 
 oldest son, or, if he had no nephew on the female side, 
 to his brother of the same mother, or, if he had no brother 
 of the same mother, to his mother's sister's son. 
 
 The sub-chiefs also are of the Eagle Clan. When one 
 dies, his place is filled, not by his son, but by the head- 
 chiefs next-of-kin who is not already at the head of a 
 clan. 
 
 The supremacy of the Eagle Clan gives rise to a 
 suspicion that at some distant date a war-chief chosen 
 from that clan must have usurped the headship and 
 divided all the lesser offices among his relatives ; else why, 
 if the Fox is the most revered totem, is not the headship 
 from the Fox Clan, and why are not the other clans ruled 
 each by a man of its own particular totem ? It may be 
 urged that the historian of the tribe has nothing to say 
 on the subject, but some history, it is known, has been 
 
26 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 lost by the death of an historian before his successor 
 was fully prepared to take his place. 
 
 The head-chiefs council consists of the head-shaman, 
 the war-chief, the seven pipe-keepers — who are old men 
 chosen from the whole tribe without reference to their 
 totems, because of their fortitude, bravery, calmness, 
 dignity, shrewdness and honesty, — all sub-chiefs who are 
 heads of clans, all other sub-chiefs who are '* whole " — 
 that is, all the head-chiefs male relations who are not 
 heads of clans, who are over seventeen years of age and 
 not crippled, maimed, deaf, dumb, blind from infancy, 
 insane, feeble-minded, or condemned to wear women's 
 clothes, and the tribal historian unless he is also a chief 
 or pipe-keeper. 
 
 This council must assemble round the council-fire 
 four times a year : at corn -planting, mid-summer, first- 
 frost, and mid- winter. It may assemble as often as the 
 head-chief desires or requires advice on matters of public 
 interest which concern either the tribe or a portion of 
 its members. Its province is to make treaties, buy, sell, 
 or rent lands, settle disputes after the lesser councils 
 have failed, give decrees of divorce, and listen and cause 
 every member of the tribe to listen when the historian 
 chants or declaims the history of the Ancestors 'and the 
 genealogies and worthy deeds of the chiefs and other 
 great men living or dead. 
 
 A council generally lasts from one to four days. On 
 the day appointed for it to begin, the women bring 
 great quantities of fuel to the spot selected for the fire — 
 usually, an open space in a grove — and then retire to a 
 sheltering clump of brush or saplings, from which coign 
 of vantage they covertly watch the efforts of two old 
 men who have been sent by the councillors to kindle a 
 flame in the old-time way with fire-sticks. The work 
 is arduous, but the old men never fail to have a fine, 
 clear blaze in time for the first assembling of the council. 
 
Government, 27 
 
 that is, a little before sunset. The members of all the 
 councils having assembled at the head-chief's house, to 
 which they were bidden to repair several days previously, 
 by messengers sent by the chief, at a nod from him follow 
 him, in single file, in order of rank, to the council-fire. 
 When they are yet a little way from it, the "most 
 honourable woman,*' that is, the woman who has borne 
 and reared the largest number of able-bodied sons, 
 advances with a brand she secured as soon as the two 
 old men retired from the scene of their labours, flings 
 it on the blazing heap "from the sun side" — the west. 
 Then she and her fuel-gatherers take possession of their 
 mats, spread a few feet away, and squat low with their 
 necks sticking out of their blankets so that they look 
 like a row of turtles. The head-chief stops north of the 
 fire while the head-shaman, muttering prayers as he goes, 
 marches stiffly to the east of it and, with his unwinking 
 gaze fixed on the setting sun, throws into the flames as 
 an oflering to the god, four precious blue wampum 
 beads. This done, he moves a stride to the south to 
 make room for the head-chief, slips round behind him 
 and takes the place of honour on his right. Then, the 
 other members of the council complete the circle and 
 all sit down on the ground. 
 
 (This assemblage looks very neat, and extraordinarily 
 ugly, shrouded in plain grey or white blankets, and without 
 paint, or ornament if we except the " medicines " of the 
 scalp-lock.) 
 
 Outside this circle sits another, composed of the 
 members of the sub-chiefs' councils, who are present as 
 a mark of respect to their leaders. Behind these, stand 
 the young men and " police." 
 
 As soon as the councilmen are in their places, the 
 young Eagle on the left of the head-chief rises, takes 
 the Eagle pipe from the pipe-keeper, fills it with killi- 
 kinnick (a mixture of tobacco, bark of the red willow. 
 
28 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 and leaves of the creeping wintergreen), lights it and 
 hands it to the chief, who takes four whiffs and blows 
 them toward the sun, after which he hands the pipe to 
 the shaman. The shaman blows one whiff to the west, 
 the other three, north, east, and south. He gives the 
 pipe to the war-chief who blows his four whiffs to the 
 four points of the compass. His example is followed 
 by the others in turn. The empty pipe is returned to 
 the keeper. When very important business is to be con- 
 sidered, all of the clan-pipes are smoked, but after the first, 
 the chief offers the smoke to the four cardinal points as 
 do the others. When the business is of moment to the 
 whole tribe, the pipes are passed to the second circle, 
 but its members take no part in the subsequent delibera- 
 tions unless called as witnesses. Occasionally, the pipe- 
 keepers themselves hand the pipes to the chief. I have 
 never been able to obtain a reason for this variation of 
 usage. After the pipes, any business is discussed except 
 divorces. They are always considered in the morning. 
 This first meeting is from sunset to sunrise as a rule, 
 though one has been known to continue from sunset to 
 sunset, or longer. 
 
 The pipes are smoked every evening through which 
 the council lasts. When it is ended, the squaws put out 
 the fire by covering it with sods. The ashes are then 
 gathered up by the shamans, who use them as medicine. 
 
 Between discussions, the historian rises up and gives 
 a chapter of tribal history. 
 
 The chief has the casting vote, but he is apt to cast 
 it as the shaman advises. 
 
 If there is dissension and ill-will among the members, 
 the chief dismisses the council and calls another meeting 
 after the Religion dance. 
 
 As before stated, the office of head-chief is hereditary. 
 Nearly always he is the object of reverent affection ; but 
 there have been instances of revolt, when he was set 
 
Government. 29 
 
 aside and his heir put in his place. There is no installa- 
 tion ceremony. When a man becomes the head by- 
 death or revolution, he calls together the councillors of 
 his predecessor, and the work goes on as if there had 
 been no change. If compliments, rebukes, or warnings 
 are his due, the old men bestow them at the Religion 
 dance. As to his powers : he calls and dismisses councils, 
 gives the casting vote, and exercises much the same 
 rights as are vested in the chairman of a committee of 
 pale-faces. 
 
 The shaman holds his place by virtue of Jhis natural 
 gifts, supplemented by his predecessor's training. He 
 may be of the lowest family or the highest. A shaman, 
 ever on the alert for a worthy disciple and assistant, sees 
 a boy of six years or over, whom he judges to have 
 the necessary qualifications, and claims him as his own, 
 a claim readily allowed by his delighted relatives, for 
 it does not take him over from their clan to that of 
 his instructor. If he is the chief's heir, so much the 
 better, his "medicine" will make him the better chief 
 and compel greater respect for his authority. Some- 
 times, however, the shaman comes not in by the door 
 of his predecessor, but over the wall as it were. The 
 present head-shaman, Nekon-Mackintosh, was left a 
 destitute orphan who wandered from wigwam to wigwam, 
 kindly enough treated but no one's especial charge till 
 he caught the fancy of a white physician, who found it 
 less difficult than he would have done in an ordinary 
 case, to take him away from his people and rear him 
 in his own family The boy slept in a bed, ate at, and 
 not on,^ a table, wore the raiment of civilization, went 
 to church and to school, studied medicine and bade fair 
 to take his foster-father's place, but — " Once an Indian, 
 always an Indian." When he came of age he deserted 
 
 ^ The savage who dines from a table does not sit or stand by it ; he squats 
 on the top of it with the food at his knees. 
 
30 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 Dr. Mackintosh, though he kept his name, and went 
 back to the tribe, where he put his knowledge of 
 Chemistry, Botany, and Medicine to such good use that 
 he is to-day the greatest man, not only among the 
 Musquakies, but among the allied tribes as well, that 
 has appeared among them since the prophet-chief, Wah- 
 ballo. Be it understood, he is not carrying civilization 
 to his people, he took the initiation of manhood with 
 an accompaniment of tortures entirely optional, he feigned 
 illness to learn the secret of the shaman's magic. Now, 
 he practises every art of the ancient sorcery with such 
 additions as his scientific knowledge may suggest, leads 
 the Medicine-dances, and is a walking museum of talis- 
 mans and fetiches. 
 
 Beside the shaman sits the war-chief, whose title comes 
 to him by election. He is the general of the little army, 
 a leader, of any family or no family, chosen by the 
 votes of the braves, to command them as long as he 
 leads them to success. The present incumbent of the 
 place is very old, and, without doubt, will be the last 
 to fill it. 
 
 The keepers of the pipes are graduates from the sub- 
 chiefs' councils. Each is elected by the council of his 
 clan or totem to this sacred office, which gives him a 
 seat at his sub-chiefs right hand in the minor council, 
 and adds him to the number of the head-chief's advisers. 
 His house, after he becomes custodian of the pipe, is 
 as sacred as the dance-house. In it must be no light 
 and frivolous conversation, no jests, no telling of obscene 
 stories, no censoriousness, no love-making. His wife 
 may cook, make, mend, or wash in the wigwam on whose 
 wall hangs the pipe in its case ; but she may not gossip 
 with her friends there, nor receive the mother of her 
 daughter's lover when that anxious dame comes to treat 
 of marriage. When her husband's high honour turns 
 her out, she builds a new house beside the old one 
 
Government, 3 1 
 
 and into it moves her blankets, children, cats, and dogs. 
 Thither, her lord is glad to follow her for his hours* of 
 rest and recreation. The one hardship for both is the 
 amount of fuel required. It is a man's business to cut 
 down the tree, which the woman drags home and partly 
 into the family dwelling, that is, she brings the trunk 
 to the middle of the wigwam, directly under the smoke- 
 hole, sets fire to it, and takes what precaution she can 
 against the smoke settling or whirling about by tucking 
 the door-flap closely around that part of her fuel supply 
 which makes exit or entrance a peril to the unwary. 
 If two wigwams are kept, one for the deliberations of 
 the sage and his colleagues, the other for his lighter 
 moments with his family, of course, two trees are required 
 where formerly one sufficed, and it would never occur 
 to man or woman to cut one tree in two, or into con- 
 venient lengths. The Musquakie Adam and Eve probably 
 made a fire at the base of a tree and after it fell, con- 
 tinued at their need, to drag its length over the embers 
 till what had been its topmost twigs were reached, and 
 — "Are not the ways of the ancestors the good ways?" 
 The historian is the man who, as a boy of six, had 
 the best memory of any one of his age in the tribe. 
 When an old historian dies, the young one whom he 
 has trained to take his place immediately chooses his 
 successor, not to the child's satisfaction as a rule, for it 
 means long hours of study with his master instead of 
 the games his soul loves with his mates. It is a pity 
 really that the master does not have a class in history 
 instead of one pupil, for sometimes the pupil dies when 
 the master is old, and there is not time for the proper 
 training of another, and so much is lost, or, at best, kept 
 imperfectly in plain and brief narration, in place of 
 chants. Once both the historian and his pupil died. 
 Then was confusion and dismay. Every one hears the 
 lore four times a year at the councils, between the 
 
32 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 deliberations of the chief and his councillors, and frag- 
 ments of it every time there is a dance or social 
 gathering; but it is not in colloquial language, but in a 
 stately old speech of words, minutes-long and difficult 
 both of pronunciation and remembrance. Some could 
 remember one passage and some another, but no man, 
 even with the aid of the bundle of the " winter counts,'* 
 could piece out the iEneid of the tribe. At this moment 
 of despair came forward a lame boy of low degree, who 
 had been in the habit of warming himself at a slit in the 
 back of the historian's tent. He had heard the instructions 
 given the young man, and so profited by them that he 
 was ready to train a new historian. Although so young 
 and a cripple, his grateful people broke rules for once, 
 gave him the right of manhood in spite of his infirmity, 
 and set him in the council as historian, next the keepers 
 of the pipes and above the young men of the chiefs 
 family. 
 
 The clan-chiefs do a good deal of talking during the 
 deliberations, and are at liberty to interrupt the historian, 
 and ask him to hasten his speech or change his theme. 
 They seldom rise to talk ; in fact, nobody in the circle 
 talks standing, except the historian. 
 
 The sub-chiefs who are not clan-chiefs have nothing 
 to say ; they are merely garnering wisdom. 
 
 The members of the second circle do not talk, but 
 they have the right to express themselves by signs. As 
 the Indian sign-language is almost as copious as the 
 spoken one, free speech is but slightly restricted. All 
 sit, but if the pantomimist is behind the man he wishes 
 particularly to impress, he has the privilege of changing 
 his seat. 
 
 There is a third circle, composed of young men and 
 the four "police," who are elected yearly after all other 
 business is attended to, to act as messengers and keep 
 the peace. The men of this circle stand. They never 
 
Government, 3 3 
 
 speak unless called on as witnesses, and never stir unless 
 sent on some errand. 
 
 Outside of this picket is a rabble of gossips and 
 listeners, consisting of the very old, the very young, and 
 the unconsidered of both sexes. 
 
 Standing in a huddled group to the south or east, 
 is generally a wretched band of hungry and feverish 
 youths who, on the morrow, are to receive the rite of 
 manhood. 
 
 The "cabinet,** the *' Honourable Women,'* squatted 
 on their mats north of the fire, look meek enough, but 
 woe betides the aspirant for tribal honours who pre- 
 sumes on this. They keep a discreet silence ; but the 
 greater number of cases to be tried they have tried 
 already in the privacy of the family wigwam, and 
 though each councillor may doubt what may be his 
 fellows* vote, his wife, the ** honourable woman,'* has no 
 doubt of his, and has already told the "most honour- 
 able** she of the greatest number of grown sons, what 
 may or may not be expected of him. Famous are 
 these august mothers — no childless woman is among 
 them — for turning public opinion this way or that. 
 Though decorum forbids them to engage men in public 
 debate, they meet together and agree on certain measures, 
 privately urge them upon the man or men of their house- 
 holds, and, if uncertain of a sister's eloquence or influence, 
 talk them over within hearing of the doubtful or oppos- 
 ing councilman as if bent on convincing one another 
 without reference to him. They are not elected to a 
 place on the prayer-mats. When a woman has a healthy 
 son old enough to marry, and one or two sturdy rogues 
 several years his junior, she takes her place as a matter 
 of course. 
 
 There is but one injustice to women in this tribe : even 
 the most honourable woman may not stand where the 
 two outer circles open opposite the chief, and testify for 
 
34 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 or against the complainants standing there, unless she 
 be the sole witness to a murder. 
 
 A sub -council is an informal affair. Its members are 
 invited by the sub-chief at the head of the clan to meet 
 him whenever he feels the need of advice, in front of 
 his wigwam if the weather is good ; in it, if rain or snow 
 is likely to put the fire out. The fire for an out-of- 
 doors meeting is made by the women of the sub-chiefs 
 household with coals from the fire that burns in the 
 middle of his wigwam. If the meeting is in-doors, the 
 fire by which he eats and sleeps serves. The ashes of 
 either fire are not medicine, but after the council the 
 men play a gambling game in them. The members 
 of the council are the medicine-man if the clan has 
 one, the pipe-keeper, the sub-chiefs grown-up sons, and 
 the best old and middle-aged men in the clan. Every 
 one takes four whiffs at the clan pipe, after which 
 business is in order. Generally the cases tried are 
 unimportant, but every complaint or dispute is listened 
 to with close attention. 
 
 As a postscript I must add that the pipes I have re- 
 ferred to are the peace-pipes. Formerly the tribe had 
 four hatchet or war-pipes; now it has but one. Where 
 that one is kept no one will tell me. Its where- 
 abouts (except when on rare occasions it is made a 
 feature of the little historical drama, "Burying the 
 hatchet") is almost as much of a secret and mystery as 
 that of the " Mee-sham," or covenant with the gods. 
 
V. 
 
 BELIEFS. 
 
 The Musquakies pay homage to four gods, seven totems 
 or patron saints, and an uncountable number of demons, 
 devils, sprites, and ghosts. 
 
 The gods are the good manito-ah who dwells in 
 the sun, the bad manito-ah who is lord over that cold, 
 slippery, wet cavern in which bad souls are imprisoned, 
 and the Brothers whose places are described elsewhere. 
 Geechee Manito-ah, the good god, created all things, 
 gave to each a soul, and ordained that a soul should 
 belong to every work of man's hands. He always was, 
 he always will be. No one knows whether, in the first 
 place, he made the world or not, but it is known that 
 • twice he nearly destroyed it — once by fire, once by water. 
 When he created the Ancestral Animals he made twelve, 
 though his first intention was to have but eleven. The 
 first man he made was so badly done that he threw it 
 down on its face and called it "Turtle." Then he 
 decided not to have a man for an Ancestor, but as he 
 did not wish to stop with anything as ugly and 
 awkward as Turtle^ he made Raccoon. When he 
 breathed the breath of life into the clay figures he 
 breathed too fiercely, and set not only the Animals, but 
 all the world on fire. After he had extinguished the 
 conflagration with a tear he found nothing left alive but 
 
 1 Turtle was the eleventh animal of the first creation. 
 
36 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 Turtle. The fire had hardened his once soft and hairy- 
 back into a shell, but otherwise he had undergone no 
 change. This pleased the Geechee Manito-ah so much 
 that he told Turtle to choose any boon in the power 
 of a god to bestow. Turtle said : " Give me a tail. 
 All the other animals you made had tails. The fox 
 had the best one of all ; give me one like his." Geechee 
 Manito-ah made answer : *' You may have a tail, but a 
 bushy one like the fox's would wear out as you dragged 
 it along the ground. Accept a smooth one." Turtle 
 took a smooth one, and was content. Then Geechee 
 Manito-ah said to Turtle: "You shall be grandfather 
 to all ; you are the eldest." This is why the Delaware 
 Indians are called Grandfathers by the other tribes, 
 their chief totem is the Turtle. 
 
 After the fire was out and the world cooled off, Geechee 
 Manito-ah again created Totems like those destroyed by 
 his breath, and all other things, except the Snake (Wau- 
 kau-thee). Wau-kau-thee was a part of him. A portion 
 of his body being in his way, he tore it off. Imme- 
 diately it glided, hissing, into the bushes, and from thence 
 made its way to a cave in the top of a high hill. Ever 
 since it has been known as the great Rain-Serpent. 
 When it puts its head out of the cave and draws in its 
 breath it sucks up the moisture of the clouds and springs. 
 As long as it has its head out no rain falls, the pools 
 and little streams are dried up, the waters of the rivers 
 are low and unwholesome. When it draws in its head 
 and goes to sleep, all is well again. It made itself a 
 wife of a dead tree-branch, and became the ancestor of 
 all snakes; consequently the human being who kills a 
 snake will bring on a drought and a pestilence of worms, 
 caterpillars, and insects (which sprang originally from the 
 slime left by Wau-kau-thee as he crawled up the hill). 
 No harm results, however, from allowing hogs to eat the 
 reptiles. 
 
Beliefs, 37 
 
 After the second creation, Geechee Manito-ah breathed 
 very softly on all he had made, so as to give life instead 
 of destroying flames. When he looked and was satisfied 
 with his work, he had Partridge build him a round boat, 
 and in it he sailed up to the sky. Daily since then he 
 has crossed the sky and looked down on his handiwork, 
 but his round boat is so deep as well as so dazzling in 
 colour that few ever catch a glimpse of him. Sometimes 
 the Rain- Serpent, which is the greatest of sorcerers, gets 
 cross, and cuts off" his view with black clouds and storms, 
 but Geechee Manito-ah bears this patiently, because of a 
 great service it rendered a long time ago. That was 
 when he came down to earth and sat down in a lonely 
 valley to make some arrows. Rabbit, who is himself a 
 sorcerer of power, concealed himself in a little whirlwind 
 of dust, and sped by, snatching the arrows as he passed. 
 With one of these he wounded Geechee Manito-ah, and 
 the wound bled so much fire that the world would have 
 been burned bare again had not the Rain-Serpent ex- 
 tinguished the flames by spitting on them. This brought 
 a new peril, which Geechee Manito-ah, lying sick from 
 his wound in the bottom of his boat, which had sailed 
 up to the sky, did not notice. . Water poured all over 
 the earth, so that everything was submerged except a 
 few creatures Partridge, a sorceress, took into a boat 
 she caused magically to appear. Rain-Serpent would 
 giv^ Partridge no help when she tried to dry up the 
 waters; so she, Antelope, and others whose names are 
 not given, besought the divers and swimmers in the boat 
 to procure a little earth. All refused except Muskrat. 
 Thrice he dived and came up unsuccessful. The fourth 
 time a little mud was on his nose as he appeared on 
 the surface of the waters, but he was dead and floating 
 out of reach. A crow flew out, caught him, and dragged 
 him to the boat. Partridge and the other sorcerers 
 took the mud from his nose, resuscitated him, and then 
 
t 
 
 38 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 set to work to make a new land. After much medicine- 
 making, they caused the pellet of mud to spread upon 
 the waters ; but their work was slow, because the boat 
 of Geechee Manito-ah was not giving them light and 
 heat. When the god's health improved and he resumed 
 his journeys, the mud dried, grass and trees grew over 
 it ; those in the boat landed and sought new homes, but 
 nothing was quite as good as before, and to this day 
 there is less land than there was before Rain- Serpent's 
 flood. 
 
 Meechee Manito-ah is not very active in mischief him- 
 self, though he was in the old, old time ; but he is the 
 father and author of all mischievous beings. He con- 
 sorted with witches, and they becanie the mothers of 
 immortal demons and devils. From his sweat, his breath, 
 his saliva, from the very words he spoke came little 
 malignant spirits that cause bad dreams, disease, jealousy, 
 melancholy, quarrelsomeness, all the bad passions, as well 
 as misfortunes and sorrows. They can ruin a man's 
 health, these sprites, separate him from his wife, blight 
 his fields, lame or kill his horses, keep his pigs from 
 getting fat, and cause his relatives and friends to hate 
 and slander him. Fortunately, they are barred from their 
 evil work a part of the year. Cold renders them torpid. 
 At the first frost they burrow into the ground, where 
 they remain until the warmth of spring releases them. 
 Because of this peculiarity, winter with all its discomforts 
 is welcomed in the wigwam. Then it is that one may 
 hear the folk-lore of the tribe recited, for then no tattling, 
 mischief-making, spiteful sprites are listening at the door 
 or darting into the speaker's open mouth. "But your 
 people sicken and die in winter,'' the sceptic urges, 
 ''The little devils creep into the body and rest there a 
 long time before they begin their mischief," the Mus- 
 quakie replies ; " and they work in the warm body when 
 it is cold outside ; that is why when one of our people 
 
Beliefs. * 39 
 
 is sick he pleases the, little devil by going into the sweat- 
 lodge that he, the devil, may come near to the skin. 
 When the little devil is near to the skin, then if one 
 has a friend to break the ice of the river so that the 
 man may run quickly from the sweat-lodge and jump in, 
 there is a chance that the little devil may be killed by 
 the cold, or put to sleep so that he will fall out of the 
 man's skin." 
 
 Meechee Manito-ah himself seldom meddles with men. 
 He lives in the caves with the wicked dead, and rules 
 over them. Some hold the belief that he was killed 
 by his wives and is now a ghost ; others deny this and 
 say that it is a tale invented by the squaws. 
 
 The Totems are an anomaly. Every Musquakie claims 
 descent from the Brothers, but at the same time calls 
 the Totems the Ancestors, or Ancestral Animals, reveres 
 them as a Roman Catholic does his saints, and appeals 
 to the Totem of his clan as the Catholic does to his 
 patron saint. Each woman belongs to a Totem-society 
 for women, but she does not pay half the attention to 
 the cult that the men do. Perhaps she is only half- 
 hearted, because her admission is not for life. When a 
 girl, she belongs to her father's Totem and to the women's 
 society named for it. If her father dies or is divorced 
 she goes over to the Totem of her mother's father and 
 joins its devotees. When she marries she belongs to her 
 husband's Totem, and thus again she changes her society. 
 If she loses him, out she goes again and returns to the 
 cult from which he took her, to stay only until she 
 contracts another matrimonial alliance. 
 
 A man keeps to his Totem-society for life. In it 
 are many mysterious observances a squaw would give 
 her scalp-lock to see, or even to hear described ; but she 
 never has seen or heard anything, and she never will. 
 It is known that each of the seven clan -societies is pre- 
 sided over by a shaman, and that once a year the 
 
40 Folk-Lo'^e of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 sl&.mans have a meeting to themselves, during which they 
 go into trances and consult the Ancestors, who are the 
 chief and original shamans. It is whispered by the 
 squaws that some one of the seven shamans has charge 
 of the " Mee-sham," a mysterious something, given to the 
 Brothers by the Ancestors, and by the Brothers presented 
 to Hee-to-gwaw, the first Musquakie man, who was 
 born from Hot Hand's shoulder. All the men of the 
 tribe know what the Mee-sham is and where it is kept, 
 but no man has ever revealed the secret to a woman. 
 One squaw told me she believed it to be the skin of 
 Black Wolf, another was sure it was a parfl^che filled 
 with very potent " medicine." Still another had made up 
 her mind that it was a roll of painted skin^, something 
 like " winter counts," but telling what to do in the secret 
 societies. A buck said : " What for you ask. Him all 
 same like your Ark to Covenant." 
 
 I am almost afraid to refer to the Indian's belief in 
 ghosts, it is so very comprehensive. Lingering far from 
 the proper abodes of spirits are not only the ghosts of 
 very old and very young people who could not find 
 their way over the Ghost Road, even if started by a 
 ghost- carrier, but also the ghosts of the unburied dead, 
 of murderers whose lives were not ransomed by their 
 friends, of those who caused anyone to commit suicide, 
 thereby destroying his immortality (for the soul of a 
 suicide explodes and is no more), together with a vast 
 array of animal spooks and the shades of raiment, 
 implements, stocks, stones et cetera. Some of these are 
 vampires that fear nothing but fire. They generally 
 appear in the form of human beings, wolves, or porous 
 stones. Worse still are the cannibal ghosts, which by 
 day appear as old, mossy logs of trees. I inquired 
 particularly if these were not demons instead of ghosts, 
 and was told emphatically that they were ghosts. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE DANCES. 
 
 When you have learned the seasons and reasons for a 
 Musquakie's dances you have little further information 
 of him to seek. He dances for health, he dances for 
 wealth — in corn and ponies — he dances to honour his 
 Manito-ah, he dances to please the Totems, to placate 
 or expel the devils, he celebrates his successes and strives 
 to retrieve his failures by dancing. This interests the 
 folk-lorist, but it annoys the agent and missionary so 
 seriously that they have represented to the Government 
 that it is impossible to christianize and civilize this 
 people so long as these heathen practices are permitted. 
 In consequence, the agent has been allowed to forbid 
 all saltatory exercises. This means of course, that here- 
 after it will be difficult for white people to see what is 
 bound to go on. For this reason, I am glad that I have 
 a full list and a tolerably good description of the dances. 
 
 RELIGION DANCE. 
 
 First in importance, though last in the age of its 
 observance, is the Religion Dance (Ow-wah-see-chee), 
 sometimes called the " Dance of Remembrance," because 
 it commemorates the return of the people to the unfor- 
 gotten ways of their fathers. At one time, their faith 
 was Roman Catholic, Claude Allouez in the days of La 
 
42 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 Salle having made converts of them, or rather, having 
 succeeded in grafting an adoration of the saints on the 
 old totem-stock ; but, some time in the past century, 
 date altogether uncertain, a prophetess of the Chippeways 
 led a number of the allied tribes back to the ancient 
 ways. The story told at the council fires is in substance 
 as follows: 
 
 When the Northern Band of the Chippeways, men, 
 women, and children together, were surprised while 
 out on a hunt, and exterminated by the Sioux, they all 
 lay dead from the setting of the sun till its rising. A 
 beam of light touched the face of the prophetess, whose 
 name is too sacred to be spoken. She smiled, stretched 
 herself and opened her eyes, as one having dreamed 
 pleasantly. " Get up and take the drum," said a voice. 
 She raised herself on her elbow and looked about. She 
 remembered, for she saw her dead people destined to 
 be slaves in the spirit-land, for their enemies had taken 
 their scalps, or if not slaves to be dead forever if 
 the scalps with the souls at the roots should be de- 
 stroyed. "Get up and take the drum," repeated the 
 voice. She lifted herself to her knees and looked at 
 the dead people again. " Get up and take the drum."" 
 She stood on her feet and looked up at the sky, but 
 she was so weak she fell down. "Get up and take 
 the drum,'' the voice said it the fourth time. She stood 
 up. She saw a drum and twelve drumsticks at her 
 feet. She took a drumstick and began to beat. The 
 others beat on the drum, they beat as if drummers 
 held them. 
 
 "Go to the other band of the Chippeways, go to all 
 who will be my friends," said the voice. She hung the 
 drum from her neck, she took one stick, the other sticks 
 hung on her back. She walked eighty days and nights 
 without food or drink, singing and praying at nighty 
 listening to the instructions of the voice by day, and not 
 
Religion Dance, 43 
 
 thinking of her strength, her healed wounds, her new 
 growth of hair. At sunset, on the eightieth day, she 
 reached the survivors of her people, and, calling them 
 together by the roll of her drum, delivered the message 
 that the few who had kept to the old faith were to pray 
 to Geechee Manito-ah, instead of asking the Animals 
 to pray for them, though the Animals should receive 
 honour still, while those who had gone to the gods of 
 the black gowns (priests) were to take leave of these 
 gods of the pale-faces, with good words and kind looks, 
 and return to the old faith. " Geechee Manito-ah is 
 poor in mind (sad)," she said, "because his best children 
 keep away from him and talk only to the Animals. It 
 is right to make feasts for the Animals and to talk to 
 them, but it is not right to have them in the first place. 
 Also, it is not right to put the gods of the black gowns 
 first, because they are white gods and take the side of 
 the white people. But do not give these gods the bad 
 heart against you by saying ill words to them; say you 
 will not trouble them with your business, and smile 
 when you say so in the church, and go away and make 
 your own dance-house." When she had talked thus and 
 had shown the scars of her wounds, and the drum and 
 the sticks that beat of themselves, they asked many 
 questions and heard all that had befallen her. Then, 
 they fasted and purified themselves in the sweat-lodge 
 and afterwards prayed to Geechee Manito-ah, and this 
 made them all of one mind, so that they staked off a 
 dance-ground, though they put no roof over it. This 
 pleased the woman and she stayed with them eighty 
 days, teaching the young men to dance and putting the 
 older ones in mind of all that the Brothers had com- 
 manded. Also, she told the people to sacrifice the white 
 dog to Geechee Manito-ah, and that the Religion dance 
 was to last for four, seven, or twenty-one days, but she 
 did not stay to see it danced, she went away, no one 
 
44 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 knows where, and never came back. She did not go to 
 other tribes with the message of Geechee Manito-ah, she 
 left that for the old men to do, the old men who are 
 chiefs or sub-chiefs — not the shamans, it is not their dance 
 though they help in it. 
 
 The dance begins at sunset, and with an intermission 
 of the hours between midnight and dawn — a very short 
 intermission indeed in tjie months in which it is generally 
 given — it goes on night and day for the four, seven, or 
 twenty-one days prescribed, as the person who gives the 
 dance can afford. The cost is not such a serious matter 
 for the chiefs who have to give the dance after every great 
 council; for though every dancer — and they sometimes 
 number many hundreds, including recruits from affiliated 
 tribes — must have a present as well as be fed on the fat 
 of the land, everybody, dancers included, must give 
 presents to the chiefs. It is another matter when a 
 chief gives the dance for a member of his family, or 
 when any tribesman does it. Then a fortune in beads, 
 blankets, ponies, and provisions is expended. For weeks 
 beforehand the honourable women are busy. They help 
 in the purchase of needful articles, ply the sacrificial 
 white dog, and the young ox destined for the first night's 
 feasting, with all sorts of fattening dainties, offer the 
 use of their own best cooking-pots, help with the sew- 
 ing and furbishing-up of the gala-garments of the children 
 of the dance-giver, and, most important work of all, 
 keep a sharp eye on the tribe's own dancers lest they 
 eat too much, and pray and practise their steps too 
 sparingly. While they are thus occupied, the chiefs are 
 sending off their runners to invite friendly tribes to 
 attend as spectators as well as dancers, taking care that 
 the giver of the dance is mentioned and thus sparing 
 him the trouble and expense of messengers to any one 
 but some friend for whom he has a special regard, or 
 to whom he feels under an obligation. The shamans 
 
Religion Dance. 45 
 
 and other important members of the secret societies 
 make it their business to put the floor of the dance-house 
 (it is only a dance-ground really) in order by spreading 
 on it many basket-fulls of fresh earth, and by repairing 
 or replacing the rough benches and tree-stumps that 
 mark its circumference and serve as seats for the 
 chiefs, their councillors, important visitors, and wearied 
 dancers. 
 
 The first to arrive on the day appointed are the 
 dancers, young men, the flower of one or several tribes, 
 very much bedizened with beads, paint, feathers, and 
 other ornaments beautiful to the barbaric eye, and, 
 having been on short rations for eighty days, very, very 
 hungry. As soon as those privileged to do so are seated 
 on the benches and stumps above-mentioned, the hungry 
 ones begin to dance, or rather caper first on one foot 
 then on the other, with their eyes fixed on the giver of 
 the dance, while they intone " yi-yi, yi-yi, yi-yi, yi-yi " 
 to the time of their capering. This brings the honourable 
 women away from the soup pots, bearing bowls of broth 
 from which they dip cupfuls, and present them to the 
 hungry young men. As the broth is well thickened with 
 lumps of fish, flesh, fowl, dough, and eggs, it is 
 undoubtedly very pleasing to the palate of the con- 
 sumers, and they accept cupful after cupful without 
 ever pausing in their steady tramp, or seeming to pause 
 in their chanting. 
 
 At sunset the cups are taken away, the chief stands 
 up facing the west, and begs Geechee Manito-ah to 
 accept that which is to be done in his honour. The 
 invocation finished, the two great drums which stand 
 year after year in the middle of the dance-ground, 
 excepting when they are taken out to have the 
 ornaments of the heads renewed by the woman who 
 has reared the greatest number of sons, are freed from 
 their waterproof wrappings, and each surrounded by nine 
 
46 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 squatting drummers. The old war-post,^ on each side of 
 which are the drums, and round which the dancers are 
 to gyrate, has had its coating of grease and charcoal 
 scraped off, and its summit adorned by a United 
 States flag, is now further honoured by having the 
 three extra drumsticks for each drum propped against 
 it. The chief lifts his hand, and at the signal the 
 drummers pound furiously, but though the great log 
 drums with rawhide heads ^w^ out a tremendous 
 booming sound, it is almost lost in the "yi-yi, yi-yi" 
 accompaniment of dancers and spectators. At the 
 instant of the first tap, the mob of dancers resolves 
 itself into a wedge, the point of which, next the drums, 
 is a boy of high degree who is a candidate for the 
 Indian toga virilis^ the gee-string or breech-clout. He, 
 poor young wretch, leads the whirling, stamping, yi-yi-ing 
 multitude of young men till his trembling legs double 
 under him, when his place is taken by another 
 unfortunate candidate. 
 
 I have been asked many times to describe accurately 
 the movements of the dancers, but that is an im- 
 possibility. It is easy enough to say that a dancer 
 stamps twice with one foot while he holds the other up, 
 and then reverses proceedings, but that is the least of 
 his labours. Everybody takes the same "steps" from 
 the beginning to the end of the performance, but the 
 evolutions are what taxes mind and muscle. At first 
 they are rather dignified, but speed and excitement 
 increase rapidly, and one minute the beholder sees a 
 flying wedge, the next a single-file procession sweeping 
 across the dance-ground to coil itself round the war- 
 post and drummers, only to uncoil itself and in some 
 mysterious fashion radiate like the petals of a daisy 
 from post to boundary-line. Then — you don't know how, 
 
 ^ Sometimes a tree denuded of all but its top-most branches takes the place 
 of the post. 
 
Religion Dance, 47 
 
 for you are sure you never looked away, or even 
 winked — there are before you two lines advancing and 
 receding as if practising a compounded reel and jig. 
 Then you see a hollow square, a solid square, a wedge 
 again, and so on, ad infinitum, while the old men stand 
 up and trot time in their places, the honourable women 
 watch everything from their prayer-mats between the old 
 men and the fire, or dart in and out of the maze of 
 dancers, proffering refreshments or carrying off empty 
 cups, and a shaman surrounded by anxious mothers of 
 candidates is whirling like a top as he does his two-step 
 and sings his yi-yi outside the circle, and opposite the 
 honourable women, to insure success to the sons of the 
 mothers aforesaid. Now and then the flying columns 
 pause abruptly, and the drums are stilled, and so are 
 the singers, though the feet of the dancers continue to 
 keep time while some wise man drones an exhortation, 
 or some penitent declares before Manito-ah and men 
 what self-denial he will practise during the ensuing year, 
 or some soloist chants the praises of the god. Then 
 the dancing goes on more furiously than ever. 
 
 Presently some one staggers and breaks step. He is 
 immediately pushed out, and his place taken by a 
 waiting dancer, one of a discontented group standing 
 between the benches and awaiting an opportunity like 
 this. There are such little groups wherever there is a 
 break in the circle, but not many among them will 
 dance the first night, the Indian muscles as a rule being 
 of more enduring quality than his white brother^s. The 
 drummers suffer most. At first they use the right hand 
 only, pretty soon the stick is grasped in both hands, a 
 little later the eyes glaze and the mouth slavers, and a 
 dancer seeing it, and regardless of his ecstasy, pushes 
 him aside and drums till in turn he gives out. 
 
 At midnight, or after, the din ceases. The women 
 go to the tents, the men, with the exception of the 
 
48 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 police and seven watchers for the dawn (the sub-chiefs-), 
 wrap themselves in their blankets and lie down to 
 sleep on the dance-ground, and near the fires. ^ 
 
 At the first hint of dawn the watchers take a drum 
 to a hill overlooking the encampment, and, standing 
 with their faces to the east, begin a very soft, light 
 tapping, which increases in volume as the light grows 
 stronger. As the edge of the sun's disk appears above 
 the horizon the beating becomes a fury of booming, 
 and there is a mighty shout from the watchers and the 
 people who have stolen up the hill behind them. Then 
 with arms uplifted they chant a hymn in honour of 
 Geechee Manito-ah who has appeared in his golden 
 boat. As this hymn is in the old language, and the 
 words run together, I never could understand well 
 enough to write it down, and no one would do it for 
 me, esteeming such a deed a sacrilege, but a woman 
 gave me what she called " the sense of it." Here it is : 
 
 " Geechee Manito-ah, we are glad you come. 
 We are glad you come in your boat, a sign to us. 
 We are glad you come, pleased to see our dancers. 
 We make the feast for you. 
 The newly-cooked food is uplifted to you. 
 The steam of the hot food rises for you. 
 The dancers dance for you in their best clothes, the trimmed clothes 
 
 of the old time, not the white men's clothes, we give them up. 
 Our feasts, our feathers, our sacred ornaments, our silver and beads 
 
 and quills and shells are all for your honour. 
 We sing for you, we beat the drum for you, the white dog is your 
 
 sacrifice. 
 Please to accept these presents, Geechee Manito-ah, and favour 
 
 us, because we are respectful to you." 
 
 When this is over there is a rush for the fire in the 
 middle of the encampment, for beside it is a scaffold 
 from which hangs the warm and palpitating body of the 
 white dog just knocked on the head by the stone 
 mallet or axe in the hands of the president of the 
 
Religion Dance, 49 
 
 i^omen's secret society of one of the clans. The man 
 who first reaches the dog whips out his knife, slashes 
 open the body and tears out the liver, taking care to 
 bring the ^all with it, which he then pours over it as a 
 sauce. In another second, the liver is torn to bits by 
 the dancers and each of them manages to secure a frag- 
 rnent and swallow it. Then, the heart is cut up and 
 scrambled for, after which the squaws dress the carcass, 
 wash it in running water, replace the entrails, wrap it in 
 pawpaw^ or walnut leaves and partly roast it in the 
 ashes. 
 
 While it is cooking, the dancing goes on, but in rather 
 desultory fashion. When it is taken up, it is torn into 
 shreds by the women, and the old men see to it that 
 every man, woman, and child has a taste. The bones 
 and hair are burned and the ashes given to the head 
 shaman. 
 
 After the dog-feast comes breakfast, consisting of soup, 
 roasted eggs and potatoes, bread baked on a hot stone. 
 Before it is partaken of, each bowl of soup and platter 
 of solid food is lifted towards the sun, but this is nothing 
 unusual. It is the Musquakie's grace before meat, never 
 omitted. I should have said in a preceding paragraph 
 that the woman who killed the dog lifted it sunward 
 before she allowed it to be torn apart. I was told her 
 hands were not burned. After the heave-offering, breakfast 
 is taken in leisurely fashion by those sitting on the 
 ground or the sleeping-platforms ; but the dancers have 
 theirs as they dance, from sacred vessels of great age. 
 
 This first dance without spectators is sometimes more 
 of a romp than the old men like, but as soon as the 
 chiefs and their retinues take their places it goes on as 
 it did before. The afternoon is as the morning, a steady 
 business of feasting, dancing, preaching and vows of 
 abstinence ; the evening is as the afternoon ; and the 
 
 ^Pawpaw, Asimina triloba. 
 D 
 
so Folk' Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 days go by, one like another, excepting that there is but 
 the one dog-feast. 
 
 When the great dance is over, those who were in tents 
 return to their wigwams, those who stayed in their 
 wigwams set them in some sort of order, the dancers 
 receive their presents and go their way, but this is not 
 all : there follows a four days' Sabbath on the reservation, 
 that every one may have time to meditate on what has 
 passed and "get the good heart" from it. 
 
 CORN-PLANTING DANCE. 
 
 The Corn- pi anting dance, which takes place in April, 
 though the real corn-planting is about the first of May, 
 is of great moment to the Musquakies, though of little 
 interest to the on-looker. It is danced by men only. 
 They dance or trot along the east side of a cornfield, 
 going in single file, with their rattles and little tam- 
 bourines or prayer-drums keeping time, while a young 
 maiden goes into the field and plants a few grains from 
 a perfect ear handed her by the honourable women. 
 Lucky is the field which is designated by the shaman 
 for the planting. It is sure to have a more abundant 
 crop than its neighbours. Any man, old or young, may 
 take part in this dance which takes place at sunrise. If 
 the harvest of the year before was scant, the dancers 
 may go entirely around the field instead of across one 
 end. Afterwards, there is some eating and drinking, but 
 not an elaborate feast. It has been stated by some of 
 the Indians' white neighbours that dogs were sacrificed 
 at this time. This is a mistake. All kinds and colours 
 of dogs are eaten at this breakfast, if obtainable, but this 
 is because they are considered dainty food. Of course, 
 when ready for consumption they are lifted towards the 
 sun, but so is all the other hot food. 
 
 If the prematurely planted corn comes up and thrives, 
 
Corn-Planting Dance, 51 
 
 as it does sometimes, an unusually bountiful harvest is 
 expected. 
 
 Some of the old men explained that when they lived 
 in the south before their trouble with the Shawnees, the 
 real planting of the fields followed the ceremonial, and 
 no food was eaten until the women were done planting. 
 Another old custom was to have the maid who did the 
 planting given a husband, who went with her into the 
 field. Later, a prophet had a revelation that this custom 
 should be abolished, and nobody doubted the genuine- 
 ness of his message from Manito-ah, for only children 
 born nine months from corn-planting — that is, from the 
 ceremonial corn-planting — are great prophets, and he was 
 one so born. The day is at the present time a favourite 
 for weddings. 
 
 TOTEM DANCES. 
 
 These are danced to all outward appearances like the 
 Religion Dance, except that there is no sacrifice of a dog, 
 and the number of dancers in each is small. No one 
 takes part except the members of the clan secret society. 
 In talking to white people, some call them birthday 
 dances, as they are meant to honour the chiefs of clans. 
 Before a dance begins, the chief at the head of the clan 
 giving it receives a present from each man of the clan. 
 He is not much the richer for this, as he must make a 
 present after the dance to every one who has taken part 
 in it. 
 
 The Eagle Dance is the most important of the Totem 
 Dances, because it is in honour of the head-chief. I 
 am of the opinion that it is not on his birthday that it is 
 given, for Totem Dances are always in the summer. No- 
 body will believe that all chiefs and sub-chiefs are born 
 at this season. 
 
 An old woman told me that when she was a little girl 
 those who took part in the Totem dances were dressed 
 
5 2 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 to look like the Ancestral Animal whose favour was thus 
 secured, but their appearance was so dreadful in their 
 suits of skins, scales, or feathers, and the masks to corre- 
 spond, that many women were frightened and made ill, a 
 state of affairs very bad for a small tribe that could not 
 afford the loss of women and babies. What to do the men 
 knew not, but the Totems took pity on them*, and in 
 dreams warned the old men to destroy the masks. Since 
 then masks have been painted to indicate the Totem. 
 
 GREEN CORN DANCE. 
 
 This is to a Musquakie what Thanksgiving day is to 
 a Yankee, or the feast of the First Fruits to a Semite. 
 It generally takes place in August, though it is occa- 
 sionally in July or September, if the maize matures 
 early or very late. When it is supposed to be "in the 
 milk," the head-chief and his council assemble, at day- 
 break, round a fire that has been kindled from another, 
 or even by the white man's matches, and give orders by 
 the mouth of some one of the sub-chiefs to whom the 
 head-chief has nodded that the most ancient of the 
 honourable women are to bring an ear for inspection. 
 Accordingly, four of them make their way through 
 the dewy cornfields, and at sunrise pluck what they 
 consider a fair sample of the growth. Wet to the bone 
 with the heavy dew, they somehow manage to run back 
 to the waiting council and present their selection with 
 the husk undisturbed. If, on examination, the ear appears 
 sufficiently matured, a policeman goes over the reservation 
 and cries the good news. If it is not, the honourable 
 women go morning after morning and bring an ear 
 until one is received which is satisfactory to the council. 
 When the good news has been cried, the squaws bring a 
 vast amount of fuel and the sub-chiefs light the fire, 
 not by friction as one might expect, but by throwing 
 
Green Corn Dance, 53 
 
 blazing brands from another fire on the dry wood 
 and leaves made ready. By the time this is done, women 
 begin to arrive with great sacks of the green corn on 
 their backs. Some of the kernels are white and some 
 are blue. The blue ones are carefully detached from 
 the "cob/* until enough are obtained to fill a queer old 
 copper kettle, holding perhaps four or five quarts. This 
 is placed on the fire, and remains there until the con- 
 tents are burned black, the shamans meantime dancing 
 around it and singing songs of thanksgiving. With the 
 cobs, the blackened kernels are thrown on the fire. When 
 both are consumed, a shaman orders the women to ex- 
 tinguish the fire by throwing sods and earth upon it. 
 This burnt-offering is supposed to be very acceptable to 
 Geechee Manito-ah, and to increase the fertility of the 
 fields. Again, women bring fuel to the spot, the chiefs 
 light a fire and corn is cooked, but this time in a large 
 vessel and with plenty of water. Other fires are started 
 at the same time, other kettles are filled, and all the 
 men except the shamans dance around them with a 
 horrid din of rattles and singing. The shamans stir the 
 kettles and decide when the contents are cooked suffi- 
 ciently. When the stew is pronounced ready to be eaten, 
 the squaws bring out wooden bowls and spoons and 
 serve the officers of the tribe first. After they have held 
 the bowls to the sun and begun to eat, everybody 
 feasts, dipping into the steaming bowls, a half-dozen at 
 once, with spoons or fingers. 
 
 The dancing and feasting, interrupted now and then 
 with horse-racing, gambling, and ball-playing, go on for 
 one or two weeks, but it is a playtime for the men 
 only. After the first kettlefuls, the squaws do the cooking. 
 Besides what they cook for the feast, they boil and then 
 dry in the sun a great quantity of this favourite food, 
 which they afterwards pack in sacks made of bark and 
 bury in deep pits lined with mats made of tules or 
 
54 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 rushes. This is provision for winter, but some is 
 always saved until the time of the dance comes round 
 again ; for it is prepared at a holy time, and is there- 
 fore the best possible nourishment for the sick. 
 
 When the men are not dancing, the women sometimes 
 take some steps, but not in single file, around the fire. 
 They go to a little distance and dance in pairs, face 
 to face and clasping each other's hands. 
 
 Some of both sexes mark their faces with spots or 
 bands of white paint, but I could not find out that it 
 signified anything. A girl said it was "fun." 
 
 THE WOMAN DANCE (I-COO-COO-AH). 
 
 This is a most extraordinary and disagreeable cere- 
 monial or function, or whatever you choose to call it. 
 Perhaps I would better say was than is, for at present 
 there is no one to start the I-coo-coo-ah. Until a year 
 or two ago, there were a few men in the tribe who 
 dressed in women's clothes and lived in wigwams apart 
 from the others. They were said to be the unfortunates 
 who had failed to strike the war-post the first time they 
 attempted it, or had in some other way failed to come 
 up to the tribal standard of manliness. They were worth- 
 less creatures, nearly always drunkards, and always un- 
 combed, unwashed, and arrayed in rags. They did no 
 work, made no visits, never spoke to a woman. They 
 passed their time in gambling with one another, singing 
 indecent songs, and dozing and dreaming from the 
 effects of swallowing tobacco-smoke or, when they could 
 get it, whiskey. They were considered "good medicine" 
 for the tribe ; and the women insured a share of it by 
 leaving cooked food and bundles of wood at their doors, 
 when no one was observing. Once a year, a feast and 
 dance was given them, at which some of the young men 
 of the common people took them by the hands, danced 
 
The Woman Dance, 55 
 
 with them, insulted them by pretended love-making, and 
 finally gave them presents of old clothes begged or 
 bought from the squaws. While the dance was in pro- 
 gress, the on-lookers of both sexes kept up a continual 
 clapping, and shouted " I-coo-coo-ah " and " Hoo-hoo, 
 henow-chee-chee." The reason the dance is not given at 
 the present time is that these make-believe kenow-och 
 [women] are no more to be found * in camp. The last 
 appointees refused to accept the place, and an unwilling 
 incumbent would be "bad medicine." 
 
 BEAR DANCE. 
 
 This is danced by the young men. At a time appointed 
 by the old men, the young ones, weapons in hand, 
 assemble, on foot or mounted, as they choose. Then, 
 running with all speed round the war-post, they aim at 
 it with knife, hatchet, arrow, spear, or gun. If any fail 
 of their aim they retire in disgrace, their one consolation 
 being that they may have food after the four days' fast 
 they have undergone. The successful ones, still fasting 
 and amid profound silence, steal away to hunt a bear. 
 Of course, this is a mere form now, but once this was 
 the preliminary to the hunt of the buffalo, deer, antelope, 
 and all the larger game. When a bear was engaged, the 
 hunters broke silence by telling it how they respected it 
 and hoped that it would allow itself to be killed. When 
 it was killed, they still had no words one with another; 
 they took the body to the encampment, where it was 
 scalped and every portion except the scalp burned. 
 This was because the bear is such powerful medicine that, 
 unless one has been killed and burned as a sacrifice, all 
 the animals killed or hurt by the hunter will at once be 
 healed and run away. After the burning came the dance, 
 which must take place while the smoke was still thick 
 and spreading far and wide to neutralise the medicine of 
 
5 6 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 other bears in the neighbourhood. Only the hunters 
 danced around the dying fire, but when that fire was out 
 and another kindled, everyone feasted by it on such 
 dried stores as the squaws were able to offer. Now, the 
 pretended hunters pretend to bring a bear, and they dance 
 in the smoke as if it were burning. The feast that 
 follows is a poor little picnic, at which the refreshments 
 are mostly tinned goods purchased from the white 
 man*s store, and dried corn boiled with grease 5|nd 
 sugar. After the feast, songs of thanksgiving to Meechee 
 Manito-ah, without whose aid no bear could be killed, 
 were, and are, sung. Last of all, orations praising the 
 dead bear were, and still are, chanted. Then follows a 
 hunt, a pretence now. 
 
 BUFFALO DANCE. 
 
 This is both an incantation and an historical drama. 
 In the autumn, the Buffalo Society, composed of all the 
 shamans and nearly all the important men without their 
 occult powers, give this dance, which, in the days when 
 game was plenty, was supposed to cause the herds of 
 buffalo to move towards the hunters. Now, the people 
 think that if ever the shamans prove to be as great as 
 their predecessors, the sod of the pastures will roll over 
 as if plowed, and from the furrows vast numbers of 
 buffalo will leap. 
 
 Secret ceremonies go on all the night preceding the 
 dance, in the wigwam of the head-shaman, all the shamans 
 (that means three men and a youth) taking part. All 
 the men who intend to dance keep watch outside. It is 
 the privilege of as many as can crowd about the door 
 to see what goes on inside, and they take turns as spec- 
 tators. If one shbuld tell a woman of the mysteries, he 
 would be paralyzed. 
 
 At dawn, the men, with bows and arrows in their 
 
Buffalo Dance, 57 
 
 hands, dance away from the wigwams toward the open 
 fields, singing as they go an invitation to the buffalo to 
 appear and allow themselves to be killed for the benefit 
 of the tribe. 
 
 While the men are dancing away toward the fields, 
 the shamans stand before the lodge, their horned bonnets 
 on their heads and wands in their hands, while they 
 dance and pray without moving from their places. So 
 sure mre they that their prayers will be heard, that they 
 mix a disgusting bitter drink in a buffalo medicine-horn, 
 and drink it the day before the dance, that their 
 stomachs may be quite empty when the hunters come 
 back with the meat. 
 
 When the sun has been up an hour or two, the 
 men dance back, looking over their shoulders to see 
 if the expected quarry is following. They are greeted 
 by the lamentations of the women, who profess to be 
 amazed that the men were not good enough to work 
 the miracle that is attempted year after year. 
 
 DISCOVERY DANCE. 
 
 After the Bear and Buffalo dances comes the Discovery 
 dance, but it is not of any great importance. The 
 men dance, not in single file, but two or four abreast, 
 to some eminence, where they bend forward and peer, 
 with a hand above the eyes, as if searching for game. 
 Presently they wave a blanket as a signal to those 
 below that they have discovered what they sought. 
 Then they race madly to where they have left their 
 horses in readiness, mount in hot haste, and gallop off. 
 When they have ridden a few miles they return to 
 their friends. The rest of the day is given up to 
 horse- racing, ball-playing, and gambling. 
 
5 8 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 YOUNG DOGS' DANCE. 
 
 The Young Dogs' dance was taught by the Animals 
 to a young man who was out hunting, saw a strange 
 animal, pursued it, lost his way, and fell into a hole. He 
 fell a long way, and became insensible. When he 
 recovered consciousness he found himself in a cave, 
 with the Animals sitting round him smoking. They 
 told him the mysteries for a secret society, gave him a 
 pot of paint [I don't know why they did not give him 
 three. They paint their faces with stripes of red, 
 yellow, and green], and taught him the Young Dogs* 
 dance. To a certainty they might have been better 
 employed, for the Young Dogs, who have a shaman 
 of their own, repair to his wigwam for four successive 
 nights before the dance, and, in obedience to the behests 
 of the Animals, make night hideous with their howling 
 and barking. What else they do no outsider knows. 
 They sacrifice two white dogs to Meechee Manito-ah 
 on the morning of the dance. The breath and steam 
 of the sacrifice are the share of the god, the Young Dogs 
 divide the hearts, livers, and gall among themselves, and 
 %\VQ the carcases to the spectators, who partly roast 
 them in ashes covered with hot coals. No, they are 
 not really roasted, they are heated for a few minutes, 
 so that Manito-ah's share may be large. Every one 
 present gets a small morsel. The dancing follows the 
 dog-feast, and is not around a central object, but in a 
 procession. It is kept up as long as those taking part 
 can keep moving, and abstain from food and water. 
 Sometimes, before the dancing begins, the Young Dogs 
 go about the reservation, or even into the streets of the 
 towns near by, and, while barking like dogs, hold out 
 their hands for presents. 
 
Horses Dance, 59 
 
 HORSES DANCE. 
 
 When visitors arrive at the reservation with horses that 
 take the fancy of the Musquakie braves, the latter, 
 after openly expressing their admiration, offer to allow 
 themselves to be " danced at/' each one indicating the 
 horse that is his price. If the offer is accepted those 
 who make it kindle a great fire and sit around it smoking. 
 The owners of the coveted animals, having provided 
 themselves with whips, or stout switches, dance about 
 the ring of smokers, and strike them on their backs 
 and shoulders. The smokers continue to draw their 
 pipes and converse at intervals as if nothing unusual 
 were taking place. At the end of a quarter or half 
 an hour, if no one has made an outcry, the horses are 
 delivered to those who were whipped for them, who, 
 after greasing their hurts, put on their shirts (the blows 
 must fall on naked bodies), mount and gallop about the 
 reservation whooping in triumph. 
 
 If a man finds the blows too thick and heavy to be 
 borne, he may say he must go to his wigwam for some- 
 thing he needs, or make any other excuse to withdraw, 
 and no one thinks the less of him ; but should he wince, 
 or give any sign whatever that he suffers, he is dis- 
 graced and much jeered at, especially by the women. 
 
 SCALP DANCE. 
 
 This is now only a bit of acting to illustrate some 
 story told by the historian or old men, or else it finishes 
 out some ceremonial such as carrying away the dead. 
 The young men dress themselves handsomely, mount 
 their ponies, ride away, and ride back at a time agreed 
 upon. In their hands they carry horse-tails, tufts of 
 hair procured from a pale-face barber's shop, as well as a 
 stray scalp or two taken from a bear or redskin. The 
 
6o Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 girls, in their best apparel, go to meet them, advancing 
 in long rows, waving their arms and sliding their feet 
 along the ground. The men present their trophies, the 
 girls receive them, begin to dance and burst into songs 
 of triumph that extol the deeds of the hero just 
 mentioned by the story-teller, or the prowess of the 
 whole tribe. The effect is very striking, as the gaily- 
 dressed young men cause their painted and be-ribboned 
 ponies to prance and curvet, and the girls, still more 
 resplendent in the bravery of silver, bead and quill 
 ornaments, dance forward and backward again and 
 again. 
 
 DEAD MAN'S MEDICINE DANCE. 
 
 The dance to a dead man's "medicine" takes place 
 the morning after his death, if possible. Of course, if he 
 dies in the morning, instead of during the evening or 
 night as he should, it must be in the afternoon. The 
 widow hangs the *' medicine," which she has taken from 
 the scalp-lock of the deceased, if he died of a lingering 
 complaint, or from under his arm, if his soul was 
 required suddenly, on a pole in front of his wigwam door. 
 This done, she sits in the doorway and weeps noisily the 
 while she tears her face with her nails, or a bunch of 
 thorns. This is a signal for the young men in training 
 for the Religion dance to dance past the "medicine" 
 again and again, and sing songs commemorating his 
 peaceful virtues and the war-like ones of his ancestors. 
 After several hours the widow puts a stop to the 
 performances by taking the "medicine" and placing it 
 on the breast of the corpse lying in state in the 
 wigwam. 
 
 It is a bad dance for the tribe. Like the Scalp 
 dance, it leaves the people not only sad, but sullen and 
 discouraged. 
 
The Young Servants Dance, 6i 
 
 THE YOUNG SERVANTS' DANCE. 
 
 There are always young men in the tribe who dislike 
 such offices as those of messengers, policemen, attendants 
 on the elders, etc. To get rid of these for ever, they stand 
 behind the councillors and declare themselves the servants 
 of the tribe for two years. Nobody says anything at the 
 time, but they are none the less bound. They are sent on 
 anybody's errands. If a man has a lame hand or foot, he 
 is at liberty to summon one of them to cut his tent-poles 
 or firewood for him,^ to curry his horses, to sharpen his 
 knives, to do anything that is a man's work. Any dis- 
 abled man, any widow may command his services. At the 
 end of the two years he and the friends who volunteered 
 with him celebrate their emancipation by a feast, to which 
 all their relatives contribute, and a dance to the music 
 of their rattles and little tambourines or prayer-drums. 
 
 BIRDS' DANCE. 
 
 The young men — the reckless ones, that is — have a 
 secret society, of which the only public observance is a 
 dance, accompanied by a very pretty imitation of bird- 
 songs and much waving and flapping of arms and blankets. 
 They go from wigwam to wigwam, and sing and dance till 
 some one brings out refreshments. No woman seems to 
 know whether the Birds' Society is anything more than a 
 social organisation or not. Whatever it is, it should be 
 suppressed. If a young fellow is a pretty good sort of a 
 youth when he goes into it, he is soon transformed into a 
 lazy, quarrelsome young vagabond. It takes something 
 from the standing of the most exemplary tribesman to 
 say, " He used to be a Bird." 
 
 ^Bringing home poles and wood is the woman's business. 
 
62 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 PRESENTS DANCE. 
 
 When poor girls are of an age to be married, and have 
 no one to give them clothes or make feasts for them, the 
 head-chief, after consultation with his wise men as to a 
 convenient season, sends out runners to invite members of 
 the tribe, friendly tribes, and even pale-faces to attend the 
 Presents or Dower dance. On the appointed evening the 
 dowerless ones sit together on a mat by the camp-fire, and 
 any man may take out any one of them and dance with 
 her, moving backwards and drawing her after him by her 
 hands. He must first drop a present in her lap, which is 
 taken charge of by a woman who acts as a sort of sponsor 
 or chaperon. If for any reason a girl is unwilling to dance 
 with one who has thrown her a present, she may make a 
 sign to her sponsor, who will return the present. Any girl 
 may dance if a present is given her, but she must give it to 
 one of the dowerless ones. 
 
 Long ago the young men had a Presents dance, at 
 which they danced in a row before visitors, at the same 
 time singing a begging song, but of late years this has 
 been interdicted by the councils. 
 
VII. 
 
 BIRTH AND INFANCY. 
 
 The shaman has every other act and ceremony of the 
 tribe kept in his memory by a glance at the knotted 
 string which serves him in lieu of a list of fees, but he 
 has no reason to consult it for memoranda of what goes 
 on in and about the birth-house. The fee-taker for all 
 that pertains to that tiny edifice is the " woman-with- 
 spots-on-her-face." The Indian mother builds her little 
 birth-house of bark or tules, according to the season, 
 puts a few armfuls of hay and a blanket in the north- 
 west corner of it, starts a fire in the middle, and places 
 on it a soup-pot. Then she waits, but not alone. Two 
 or three women-friends are in attendance to keep her 
 mind off her troubles by chatting pleasantly, and, when 
 it becomes necessary, to run for the woman-with-spots- 
 on-her-face. If, by any mischance, a woman has not a 
 birth-house ready at the time it is needed, her women 
 friends hurry the inmates of her home into theirs, along 
 with the bedding, utensils, clothes, weapons, and orna- 
 ments, leaving her mistress of the mansion and one 
 blanket and pot. This is inconvenient but necessary, 
 for " born-in-the-fields," that is, out of doors, is a dis- 
 grace. To apply the epithet to a Musquakie is equiva- 
 lent to calling a white man a liar. It is not a disgrace 
 to be born in the family wigwam, but it is unlucky for 
 
64 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 the child; it is sure to die before its parents if it has 
 had no house of its own. 
 
 When the woman's hour has come, one of her friends 
 goes with all speed for the woman-with-spots-on-her- 
 face. This is the woman who at puberty reqeiA^d the 
 roughest usage and had the greatest number of Religion 
 dances given in her honour, each dance entitling her to 
 have a vermilion spot painted on her countenance. When 
 the messenger reaches her and announces that her friend 
 is in need of her assistance, she of the spots pays no 
 heed, she sits and rocks herself back and forth while 
 she sings " yi-yi, yi-yi," as do the men in the Religion 
 dance. In vain does the messenger seek to attract her 
 attention by speech hard or soft, she is deaf to all 
 sound save her own singing. After awhile, comes another 
 messenger. She is also unsuccessful. Then arrive a 
 third and a fourth. When the fourth makes an im- 
 passioned appeal, the woman-with-the-spots-on-her-face 
 starts up as from a trance and cries out: "Now, it is 
 finished ! Let us go to the happy mother and child ! " 
 Sure enough all is finished, as the quintette discover 
 when they reach the birth-house. The woman-with-the- 
 spots-on-her-face steps into the birth-house, takes one 
 look and steps out again to raise a piercing cry that 
 summons all the women on the reservation not already 
 in attendance, and the father. The women mass them- 
 selves before the door and the father sneaks around to 
 the back of the house. The woman-with-the-spots-on- 
 her-face slits a hole in the back of the house and hands 
 out the naked baby for the father's inspection. When 
 he has handed it back and slipped away from the neigh- 
 bourhood, she of the spots stands in the door and calls 
 aloud the name she has given the infant, one which must 
 indicate its father's clan. For instance, an Eagle's child, 
 if a boy, might be called Grey Eagle, or War Eagle, 
 or Hawk, any bird of strength and fierceness, or any 
 
«> 
 
 Birth and Infancy, 65 
 
 part of such a bird, as Tall Feather, Strong Beak, etc.; 
 while a girl might be Singing Bird, Little Duck, Pretty- 
 Wing, or any small bird or one of its component 
 parts. 
 
 After the naming, the mother goes to the river and 
 bathes herself and child — sometimes killing herself and 
 it if the weather is bad. As she goes to and from the 
 bath, the men are careful to keep out of the way. If 
 a man should meet her, he would have to seclude himself 
 during the time she remains in the birth-house. She 
 remains in it thirty days for a boy, forty for a girl. 
 During this time she is visited at rare intervals by some 
 woman who makes it her business to bring food from 
 the husband's wigwam. At the end of it she bathes 
 herself and baby, burns up the birth-house and its con- 
 tents, sprinkles herself and baby with the ashes, and 
 goes back to her husband. 
 
 She nourishes her child at the breast until it is three 
 years old, or even four or five. She has the sole con- 
 trol, but not the sole care, of it until it is five years old 
 if a boy, seven or eight if a girl. Indian fathers — Mus- 
 quakie Indian fathers at least — are exceedingly fond of 
 their infants and are at the beck and call of the little 
 tyrants, who learn to abuse their privileges long before 
 they learn to talk, night and day. As the old division 
 of labour was that the man should be the hunter and 
 provide the meat, while the woman should till the 
 fields and provide the bread ; and as the old rules pre- 
 vail, though conditions have changed and the game is 
 all dead, it follows that a man has more time to devote 
 to his children than has their mother. 
 
 While under training age, the little ones are indulged 
 and petted as few white children are. Only one command 
 is laid upon them : they must not speak in the presence 
 of the old men, whether related to them or not. If they 
 disregard this law of laws, they are punished, not by 
 
66 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 flogging, but by having bowls of cold water poured over 
 them. 
 
 The Musquakie infant has few toys. The girl has a 
 doll, made by her mother and pow-wowed by the shaman, 
 which she carries by day and snuggles in her blanket 
 at night. The boy has a bow and blunt arrows with 
 which he learns to kill field-mice and birds. Both learn 
 to ride almost as soon as they learn to walk, sticking 
 on the pony's back with the aid of a saddle-horn, or 
 a twist of rope into which they can tangle their toes. 
 Both have pet dogs for which they fight and howl 
 valiantly when " company '* comes to dinner, and which 
 they generally manage to keep out of the pot. 
 
 An infant has no " medicine " of its own, though it 
 wears a few talismans of beads or silver made by its 
 mother or the silversmith under the supervision of the 
 shaman. These talismans are most of them intended 
 to protect the soul instead of the body. Baby's soul 
 does not travel while the body sleeps, as it will when 
 it is older, unless it sleeps with its mouth open. In 
 that case the soul is likely to escape in the form of a 
 moth or butterfly and not know how to return. To 
 prevent this calamity, some mothers tie on talismans, 
 and others, more prosaic, tie a string under its chin and 
 over its crown. If it should be ill, the mother fastens 
 her ''medicine" in its scalp-lock. 
 
VIIL 
 
 PUBERTY. 
 
 As soon as a boy is weaned from his mother's breast, 
 and that is when he is four or five years old, he belongs 
 to his father, or, if his mother is a widow or divorced, 
 to her father, if she has one living, and if she has not, 
 to her nearest male relative. From being the most 
 conceited, care-free pet imaginable, he becomes a boy of 
 many griefs and trials, and he may not run to mamma 
 for consolation ; that would disgrace him forever. He 
 is compelled to keep long vigils, to fast and look on 
 while others feast, is sent on errands in the dark, which 
 he has been told swarms with mischievous little devils 
 and cannibal ghosts, is set to ride unbroken colts, thrown 
 into the river to swim ashore as best he may, is kept 
 in the burning sun of summer and exposed to the fury 
 of storms and the bitterness of midwinter cold. All these 
 trials go on, not constantly, but intermittently, till he 
 is fourteen. 
 
 During the nine years of novitiate, the training from 
 month to month and year to year grows more severe 
 and continuous. The fasts that at first were deprivation 
 from one meal lengthen, till they stretch over days and . 
 nights of abstinence from both food and water; and other 
 hardships increase in proportion. In addition, his father 
 has spent what he can to obtain the goodwill and 
 assistance of the shaman towards making the boy a 
 
68 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 fine man, this assistance consisting outwardly in the 
 shaman's spinning round and round before the door of 
 the sweat-lodge after he has been sweated, and singing 
 prayers and flattery to the boy's totem. Also, the father 
 gives as many Religion dances as he can afford, and, 
 during the last year of the trial, has him, for eighty 
 days, taught to lead the Religion dance. Finally, comes 
 the nine days' fast, during which the poor young wretch 
 wanders solitary in the woods, dreams feverish dreams 
 supposed to be prophetic, and one special dream which 
 tells him what his "medicine" is to be, and, sometimes, 
 what his vocation \s. Before the fast is over, it is 
 incumbent upon him to find the thing which constitutes 
 his medicine, obtain possession of some part of it without 
 causing its death or destruction, and place this part 
 obtained in a little bag, to be worn under the left arm. 
 
 Self-torture is not now inflicted, nor is the candidate 
 for manhood whipped by the chief of his clan, as in 
 days of yore. Somebody had a revelation that this was 
 to be done away with, very likely the chief of a large 
 clan, for it is told that the chiefs used to have lame 
 arms from their exertions with the quirt. 
 
 The morning after the head-chief's council, as soon 
 as the divorces are disposed of, the candidates, still 
 fasting, appear in the circle called the dance-house. 
 Sometimes the old black war-post is in the middle in its 
 nakedness, sometimes it is surmounted by a flag. In 
 either case, if the old custom is to be observed, and it 
 is seldom that it is not, the youths begin the day by 
 striking the post. With whatever weapon they choose 
 in their hands, and mounted on bridled but unsaddled 
 ponies, they essay their fortune. The shaman follows 
 '<^ them, but stops outside the sacred enclosure and turns 
 round and round, reciting prayers for their success. The 
 chiefs and councillors take seats at the posts that mark 
 out the great circle, the rest of the tribe stand and look 
 
Puberty, 69 
 
 on from outside. At a signal from the head-chief, the 
 youths set out in a furious gallop around the post, and 
 shoot bullets or arrows, or fling knives or hatchets, at it. 
 Round and round they go until a signal is given to stop. 
 Then, the war-post is examined, and as every missile 
 has its owner's mark on it, it is soon known if any one 
 has failed in his aim. If any one has failed — this seldom 
 happens — he is never reckoned a man. The successful 
 ones are next sent on a pretended bear-hunt. Then 
 follows the Bear dance, and later, another pretended 
 hunt which gives the young actors in the tribal drama 
 an opportunity to go to their wigwams to rest until 
 sundown, when they must take part in a Religion dance. 
 
 When the post is not struck by the candidates, the 
 chiefs and old men substitute for the ceremony an ex- 
 amination into their healths, skill, and accomplishments. 
 Several hours are passed in riding, throwing, shooting, 
 and wrestling, after which they stand in a row and promise 
 to be faithful friends and tribesmen, to avenge all wrongs 
 against their people, to revere the Ancestral Animals 
 and the memory of the great men who have gone to 
 the spirit-land, and to say many prayers to Meechee 
 Manito-ah. These make no pretence of hunting ; after 
 the examination, they go to their homes and sleep till 
 time for the Religion dance. 
 
 The dance lasts till midnight. The youths sleep on 
 the floor of the dance-house from midnight till dawn, 
 and wake — men ! 
 
 This day, each new man who can afford it has a feast, 
 to which all men of his totem are bidden. 
 
 The girFs training is not, as a rule, so severe as her 
 brother's. From the time she is seven she has her fast 
 days, is inured to extremes of heat and cold, and has 
 her courage tested by being sent on errands after night 
 with no guard but her mother's "medicine" and her own 
 little talismans ; but her hard usage is not so hard, nor 
 
70 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 so frequently repeated, as a boy*s, unless it is the ambition 
 of her parents to make her a medicine-woman of renown, 
 in which case her life is to be described as strenuous, 
 though she considers that she has ample compensation 
 in the Religion dances given for her. For each dance 
 she is entitled to wear a round red spot on her face, 
 and great is the deference shown her by her companions 
 because of these. They mean much respect from her 
 elders also, and easy admission into the medicine-society 
 when she is a young woman, good luck for her and by 
 means of her all her days, and a place of honour almost 
 equal to the shaman's when she is old. 
 
 When she is twelve or fourteen, or, rarely, when she 
 is eight or nine, she is secluded for a week with an old 
 woman, in a little hut built by her mother. The old 
 woman's business is to keep her from getting out, to see 
 to it that she has very little food or water, to hang on 
 her a new fetich, bought from the shaman, each day, and 
 to sing prayers for her all the time both can keep 
 awake. 
 
 At the end of the week, the old woman receives a 
 blanket or pony for pay, the girl is brought out, washed, 
 dressed in new clothes and given a feast to which all 
 her relatives male and female are invited. The women 
 and girls give her presents of small value, but the men 
 merely eat of the good things she hands them and take no 
 notice of her, beyond a grunt of acceptance as she sets 
 before them bowl after bowl.^ When they have finished, 
 she sits — down? — no, on the platform which is the bed 
 by night and table by day all through the mild weather,^ 
 and has her dinner in company with the matrons and 
 maids of her relationship. 
 
 The feast of a rich tribesman's son or daughter consists 
 of roast dog, soup made of turkey, chicken, beef, pork, 
 
 ^ Only on occasions of ceremony do the men eat first. 
 
 2 By luck or pretence the puberty-feast is always in mild weather. 
 
Puberty, 7 1 
 
 beans, potatoes, maize and beans, cakes made of tallow 
 and cherries pounded pulp and stones together, lumps 
 of maple-sugar, wheat and maize bread baked on a hot 
 stone, nuts, dried plums and a sickening drink of sugar- 
 water flavoured with beef-gall. 
 
 After the feast, everybody goes home without any form 
 of leave-taking. The guests do not even depart in 
 chatting groups. When filled to repletion, each slides off 
 the platform, tightens his or her blanket into a sort of 
 shroud and silently steals away. 
 
IX. 
 
 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 When a youth is sixteen, he is told to look about him 
 for a wife, and he obeys the mandate with cheerful 
 alacrity. As he may not marry a girl of his own clan, 
 he widens the circle of his friends, so that he may have 
 the opportunity to observe their sisters. From time to 
 time he reports the result of his observations to his father, 
 who listens gravely and administers advice after due 
 thought and deliberation. When the young man finds 
 a girl he fancies, the confidences become more frequent, 
 the sympathy and advice if anything more serious. No 
 gentleman of the wigwam would for an instant consider 
 an incipient love affair a theme for a joke, or even for 
 light and frivolous remarks to a member of the home 
 circle. If the father does not approve of his son's choice, 
 nearly always the young man makes another ; but if his 
 regard has become so fixed that he cannot change, he 
 makes every effort to bring his parent to his way of 
 thinking. Both are argumentative and unhappy for awhile. 
 But if the son will not give in, the father generally does, 
 apparently of his own volition ; but those most concerned 
 know that it is after many a night spent in whispered 
 consultation with his wife. 
 
 The choice having been made and agreed to, mamma 
 sets out, in her old clothes by way of showing that she 
 has nothing on her mind, and strolls into and out of 
 
Courtship and Marriage, 73 
 
 several wigwams, gossiping a little, giving the dogs an 
 informal kick now and then, making .^luck good for the 
 growing children by uncomplimentary remarks or no 
 remarks at all, till at last she reaches the abode of the 
 inamorata. After some desultory conversation, mamma 
 states that she must soon begin to look for a wife for 
 Pa-she-quan, or whatever his name may be. The other 
 does not remember his age exactly, but is of the opinion 
 he must be too young to marry, though truly she does 
 not recall his appearance well enough to discuss the 
 matter as she could wish to out of compliment to her 
 caller. (This in the face of the fact that he is her son's 
 friend, and in and out of her wigwam a score of times 
 a day.) Mamma states his age and thinks proper to 
 add that he hasn*t given any thought to matrimony, but 
 that it is her wish to see him wedded to a good girl. 
 Mamma Number Two, evidently desiring to be polite 
 and obliging, mentions the names of several girls, daugh- 
 ters of her neighbours. They are fine girls, agrees 
 Number One, but Pa-she-quan has never cared for that 
 style of beauty. Now, what he praises is (here follows 
 a description of Number Two's daughter). 
 
 A long pause. Mamma Number Two evidently seek- 
 ing to remember such a paragon among the daughters 
 of her friends. 
 
 Finally, Number One breaks the silence by inquiring 
 for the health of Number Two's daughter. 
 
 She is well. She has gone to visit a neighbour. 
 
 One mother knows just as well as the other that when 
 a juvenile scout ran home and told the miss that Pa- 
 she-quan's old woman was coming, the said miss hid 
 herself in the darkest corner of the wigwam under a 
 roll of bedding, and at that moment she is with difficulty 
 stiffling her giggles, that she may not miss a word of 
 the conversation. 
 
 After many regrets for her absence and many com- 
 
74 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 pliments on her good looks and manners — all of which 
 are carelessly waved aside by the mother — the visitor, 
 quite as an afterthought, asks the charmer's age, is it, 
 perhaps, nineteen or twenty ? 
 
 "Twenty-four." The marriageable age for girls. 
 
 " Twenty-four ! " — the visitor feigns intense surprise. 
 
 Mamma Number Two, in turn, is surprised. Has not 
 Mamma Number One' noticed how many mothers of 
 young men look sadly on her daughter as she walks 
 along. Truly, that girPs one fault is that she is so hard 
 to please ; for months she has done nothing but spread 
 sorrow. Her parents would gladly have her less attrac- 
 tive. 
 
 Mamma Number One had not noticed this lament-, 
 able state of affairs, but she could well believe, et cetera, 
 et cetera. 
 
 Finally, she takes leave — no, she merely goes, as 
 any Indian does when conversation has ceased to be 
 interesting. 
 
 Next day, if the girl and her family are pleased, the 
 call is returned, and each mother makes herself agree- 
 able by praising the offspring of the other. 
 
 After this second call, the young man^ not quite 
 seventeen, is free to follow his lady-love of twenty-four 
 whenever she steps out of doors. He may not accost 
 her, and he may not go into a house where she is ; he 
 may no longer go to the family wigwam to call upon 
 her brother, but he may and does dog her footsteps 
 whenever she makes it convenient for him so to declare 
 his tender passion. For some days she takes no notice 
 of her skulking admirer, but the day comes when she 
 coyly glances over her shoulder and raises her brows 
 and shows her white teeth in a smile. The young man 
 sometimes hastens the appearance of this smile by 
 throwing a light into the lady's face by means of a cup 
 of water or a small mirror. After the glance or smile 
 
Courtship and Marriage, 75 
 
 is won, he proceeds to make night hideous by sitting 
 behind his love*s wigwam and tooting on his willow flute 
 from dusk until the morning star — called the lovers' 
 star, the day-bringer — appears in the heavens. Three 
 months of this is considered a proper courtship. When 
 the ordeal — it is an ordeal, for through fair weather, 
 through foul, he must be at his post, nor does headache 
 or other illness bring immunity to the girl and her 
 family — when the ordeal is over, he sneaks into the 
 wigwam some morning and sits down north of the fire. 
 His mother-in-law-to-be hands him a platter with food 
 on it. While he is eating this, every one present except 
 mamma steals away, leaving her to haggle over the 
 presents she is to receive. These consist of from one 
 to ten ponies, some beads, and a knife or two, accord- 
 ing to the wealth of the suitor and the beauty of the 
 girl. 
 
 The bargain made, mamma calls in her husband and 
 her nearest male relatives. These proceed to dress the 
 young man in a fine new suit (which he must return on 
 the morrow) and take him to call on all their friends 
 and relatives and his. The father of the girl leads the 
 way ; after him stalks the bridegroom ; after the bride- 
 groom, in single file, go his mother-in-law's next of kin, 
 looking anything but bridal according to our standards 
 as they solemnly tramp along with their toes turned in 
 and one foot behind the other so as to make but a 
 single narrow track. 
 
 At sunset, the young man goes home alone and gets 
 the supper he is quite ready for, as he has had nothing 
 to eat since early morning. 
 
 After dark, the girl, who has been hidden in a relative's 
 wigwam for twenty-four hours, is taken home. 
 
 By sunrise, next day, she is dressed in her best 
 apparel, and stands just inside the wigwam-door. Soon, 
 the lover appears, bringing the promised presents, which 
 
7 6 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 he delivers to waiting relatives on guard outside the 
 door. When the presents have been counted, examined, 
 approved, and delivered to mamma-in-law, who is sta- 
 tioned behind the wigwam, paparin-law bids the young man 
 enter the home. He enters, takes the girl by both hands 
 for a moment. When he releases her, the bride goes to 
 the fire, makes a pretence of re-kindling it by throwing 
 dry twigs on the embers, prepares a little bowl of gruel 
 and hands it to her bridegroom. He swallows it, chucks 
 her under the chin a few times and leads her to a roll 
 of blankets his mother brought the night before to serve 
 as a nuptial couch. On this the two sit nearly all day, 
 contentedly smiling at each other, taking little notice and 
 being taken little notice of by the friends who stroll in 
 and out. 
 
 The young man lives with his wife's people, but this 
 does not make him or his children of her clan — of her 
 people's clan, that is, for she henceforth belongs to his 
 till death or divorce separates her from him. As for his 
 children, his death or divorce gives the minors to the 
 maternal grandfather's clan ; but those who have had the 
 puberty-feast still belong to his. 
 
X. 
 
 DEATH, BURIAL, AND GHOST-CARRYING. 
 
 When a sweat in the sweat-lodge and a cold plunge in 
 the river after it have proved inefficacious, when the old 
 woman with the basket of healing herbs has come and 
 gone, when the woman-with-spots-on-her-face is no longer 
 importuned for her prayers and good-will, when the sha- 
 man has given over his incantations and medicine-dances, 
 when the Religion dancers have danced and drummed 
 and shrieked and howled and subsided into quiet, then 
 it is time for all the watchers save one to hide their 
 faces in their blankets and steal out of the wigwam-door, 
 leaving it wide open that the soul about to fare forth 
 may not have to struggle for an exit. 
 
 When the watcher, the mother if there is one, some 
 old woman if there is not, perceives that the soul has 
 left the body, she waits a moment or two to give it time 
 to leave the wigwam, then with a loud voice she cries 
 out that it has gone, and begins to wail. At once, all 
 the relatives begin to wail, and two of them — men if the 
 dead was a man, women if a woman or child — go in to 
 see if the face needs re-painting, and to add any orna- 
 ments to the costume that were not put on before 
 death.^ 
 
 If the death occurs in the morning, the funeral is in 
 
 If it is possible, the best garments are put on as soon as the shaman 
 gives up the case. ' 
 
78 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 the afternoon ; if any time between noon and midnight, 
 the morning of the following day. None of the clan may 
 eat, except the morsel held to the sun, or even take a 
 sip of water, while the dead lies unburied, but food is 
 partaken of by the friends who assemble. They bring 
 hot food in kettles, afterwards receiving pay for it from 
 the family of the deceased. 
 
 When No-chu-ning was at the point of death his mother 
 begged him to raise the death-song, but he shook his 
 head. No one raises his death-song now. When a man 
 died in battle or succumbed to his wounds after, as No- 
 chu-ning's grandfather did, strength somehow came in 
 the last hour to boast of deeds of prowess and defy the 
 foe ; but why should the failing breath be wasted to tell 
 of a few horse-races won, or quickened to defy the tribe's 
 relentless enemy, consumption } The mother and wife 
 had hastened consumption's victory by an hour or two, 
 perhaps, when they lifted and turned No-chu-ning as 
 they placed under him his fine broadcloth blanket and 
 dressed him from neck to feet in shirt, leggings, breech- 
 clout and moccasins of fringed and beaded buckskin. 
 To these, they added many necklaces of beads, many 
 silver disks over his chest, many silver bracelets and 
 rings on his arms and fingers. 
 
 When he was dead, and his mother had gone out of 
 the wigwam wailing, two men went in, stamped out the 
 fading embers of the household-fire, that was allowed 
 to die as he did, and was never to be rekindled. On 
 the ashes they placed a rude stretcher or bier, that had 
 been made ready and brought into the wigwam the day 
 before. Then, they lifted No-chu-ning by his blanket 
 and laid him on the bier. This done, they painted his 
 face (from his own paint-pots, for to paint from another's 
 would cause that other to have visions of the dead) with 
 bars of red, green, and yellow, interspersed with blue 
 dots, his secret society marks and colours. Lastly, they 
 
Deaths Burial^ and Ghost-Carrying, 79 
 
 wrapped him in his blanket like a mummy in its cere- 
 ments, and went out to join the men who were praising 
 his virtues in low tones, or groaning and cutting their 
 arms with bits of stone. The men stood in a group 
 near the open door, the mother, wife, and other near 
 woman-relatives ran into the wigwam, wailing, shrieking, 
 tearing their hair and garments, horribly clawing their 
 faces with nails and thorns, because tears of water were 
 too weak for so great a loss and tears of blood must 
 be shed. Other women echoed their grief outside, some 
 of them sitting in the dust, some running to and fro. 
 
 Presently two old women brought pots of hot food and 
 offered it to the men. Each took a little of the thick 
 "mush," or porridge, made of maize-meal and water in 
 which meat had been boiled, in his fingers, held it towards 
 the sun and towards the wigwam, and then ate it. No 
 other food was offered during the evening or night. 
 
 Next morning the young men, twelve in number, who 
 were to carry the bier, advanced from a tiny brush-covered 
 ravine in which they had sat and mourned all night,^ and, 
 without speaking to or noticing any one, lifted the bier to 
 their shoulders and started towards the hilltop, on which a 
 wide, shallow grave had been dug by white men hired by 
 the relations.2 Every one in the tribe followed, except the 
 shaman ; he never attends the funerals of any one outside 
 of his immediate family. The men went silently, but the 
 cries and shrieks of the women were redoubled. It was a 
 strange, sad, scattered procession up the steep hill ; a few 
 men kept in single file behind the bier and a few women 
 filed after them, but the others covered half the hillside, 
 toiling along, each oblivious of the others, with eyes on the 
 ground or lifted to the bier. Now and then some one ran 
 up alongside of the bier, looked into the painted face the 
 
 ^ For some unknown reason they did not dance the Dead Man's Medicine 
 dance, as was expected of them. 
 * Formerly slaves did this work. 
 
8o Falk'Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 bearers had uncovered before they started, and with most 
 piteous entreaty besought the dead to rise, to return to his 
 cold hearth and relight it, to comfort those whose blood 
 fell in tears because of their grief for the loss of him. 
 While these spoke, the wailers ceased their outcries, to 
 continue them when No-chu-ning made no response. 
 Arrived at the grave, a most passionate last appeal was 
 made that he would not take his way to the spirit-land, 
 and for a few moments the bearers held the bier motionless 
 and waited. When there was no reply, two of them with 
 a dexterous twist covered the head and face again ; then 
 the twelve of them contrived to step into the grave and 
 lay their burden down. Relatives then came forward and 
 placed beside the body a gun, a jar of food, a bundle of 
 clothing, a pair of moccasins, an embroidered bag contain- 
 ing a pipe, tobacco, a knife, an awl, and a number of 
 cartridges. This done, all the women and such men as 
 were not relatives went slowly down the hill, lamenting 
 and praising No-chu-ning, and leaving the men of his 
 family to fill up the grave and build over it a triangular 
 structure of boards, which they rendered waterproof by 
 shingling. This task ended, they went back to the wig- 
 wam, but not to enter it — no one would ever enter it 
 again — they sat down in front of it, beside the fire the 
 squaws had kindled. Soon friends came with food, of 
 which a goodly portion was thrown down by the fire, 
 that as it dried its steam might nourish the spirit, which 
 would linger about the place until the ghosts-carrier should 
 take it away. 
 
 For thirty days the relatives mourned night and day 
 by the empty wigwam and on a hill opposite the one 
 on which was the grave. They might not, as would a 
 white mourner, go near the grave then or at any other 
 time. For thirty days also was the ghost-fire kept burn- 
 ing, and much food laid before it, for a newly made ghost 
 is very cold without its body, and not easily satisfied with 
 
Deaths Burial^ and Ghost-Carrying, 8i 
 
 the light quality of its refreshment. There is besides 
 another reason for keeping the fire alight : demon-ghosts, 
 especially those which renew their strength by eating souls, 
 are afraid to get near a fire lest they explode ; it is thus 
 the safeguard from their malicious efforts to disfigure or 
 destroy the spirit, which is, until started on the ghost-road, 
 naked unto its enemies. 
 
 When the thirty days were over, friends came to where 
 the mourners had crouched under a temporary shelter of 
 mats and poles, set up by some of the squaws beside 
 No-chu-ning's empty wigwam. " Let the ghost be carried 
 away," they demanded. 
 
 There was no response. 
 
 The wortien-friends entered the wigwam ^ and sat down 
 before the mourners ; the men stood at the door and 
 entreated the father, who sat between the wife and 
 mother. 
 
 "Look up! look up!" said the friends in unison. "Look 
 up, mourners, fasters, who have caused your blood to flow 
 because tears of water were not enough to shed for 
 No-chu-ning." 
 
 The mourners, shrouded in their blankets, said softly: 
 " We cannot look up." 
 
 "He died long ago, the fine son, the good husband, the 
 brave and faithful friend. Is he in the Happy Hunting 
 Ground, pursuing the plentiful game, rejoicing in the 
 company of warriors ? " 
 
 No one replied. 
 
 " Is he in the Happy Hunting Grounds } " 
 
 Again no reply. 
 
 "Mourners and fasters, is he in the Happy Hunting 
 Grounds, or have you failed to befriend his ghost?" 
 
 The mourners renewed their lamentations, the men 
 
 *The temporary wigwam. No one would enter that in which there had 
 been a death. This custom renders it an impossibility for Indians to make 
 what we call "permanent improvements."' 
 
 F 
 
82 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 groaning and causing their right arms to bleed, the 
 women beating their breasts, tearing their hair and 
 cheeks. 
 
 " Why is not No-chu-ning in the Happy Hunting 
 Grounds? Have you not sent him?" persisted the 
 friends inexorably. 
 
 "He is so loved we cannot part with him, we cannot 
 let him go," chanted the women-friends, their voices 
 rising above the laments of the mourners. 
 
 " He is outside. He cannot come in. Naked is his 
 soul. He is cold. He is like a wolf picking up crumbs 
 cast into the darkness. He is no longer a fine young 
 man. He begs at his own door," chanted the men. 
 
 " He is son, husband, brother, we cannot part with 
 him, we cannot let him go ; if he goes, he returns no 
 more," the mourners responded. 
 
 " He is thin. He trembles ; the ghosts of evil intent 
 mock him as he tries to get warm by the ghost-fire. 
 Why is he mistreated and shamed } Why is he not a 
 happy hunter in the Happy Hunting Ground ? " 
 
 " We cannot part with him. If he goes he returns 
 not. Long is the ghost road, no one returns over it." 
 
 " He is lonely. He has no companion or bosom 
 friend. He sees his friends but they do not see him; 
 he knows they do not see him. He hears them talk, 
 but they cannot hear his thin voice. Send him to the 
 Happy Hunting Ground, let him have the company of 
 his ancestors." 
 
 " Long is the ghost-road. He will not return 
 over it" 
 
 " Long is the ghost-road, but all go over it. You 
 will follow No-chu-ning, if you send him to the Happy 
 Hunting Ground." 
 
 Again and again the entreaties and refusals, with 
 slight variations, are repeated. Finally the mourners 
 stand up and say: 
 
Deaths Burial^ and Ghost-Carrying, 83 
 
 "Yes, yes, we shall all follow No-chu-ning, wise, 
 good, and loving. We shall not lose him. We shall 
 follow after him. Quick! make ready the horse, the 
 new clothes, the feast" 
 
 " They will send him ! The mourners for No-chu-ning 
 will send him ! Make ready the horse, the new clothes, 
 the feast, call the ghost-carriers, bring no more wood to 
 the ghost-fire, bring no more food ; let the men who sit 
 by the ghost-fire praising No-chu-ning, that he may 
 hear, rise up, and help to make ready." 
 
 The men-friends walked away. The women followed 
 them, the last to go setting down a jar of water she 
 had held in her hands, and drawing close the door-flap, 
 so that the mourners might have privacy while they 
 washed their faces and donned their best apparel. 
 
 At a tap of the sacred drum the mourners came 
 forth, their wounds oiled, their faces barred with paint, 
 their torn garments replaced by whole ones, and took 
 their places on the long raised platform at the side of 
 the wigwam, which in winter is used for the death-feast 
 only, though in summer it is both bed and dinner-table 
 for the family. Other members of the clan mounted 
 beside the mourners, till but one vacant place remained 
 between the father and wife. At this place were a new 
 knife, cup, and plate. 
 
 ** No-chu-ning ! No-chu-ning ! No-chu-ning ! come to 
 your feast," cried the father. 
 
 At this call a young man ran from behind No-chu-ning's 
 wigwam, leaped upon the platform, and crouched down 
 with the new knife, cup, and plate before him. 
 
 "Eat, my son," commanded the father. "Long is 
 the journey set you. Long is the ghost-road." 
 
 At once women-friends brought great bowls of soup 
 and placed them in a row down the middle of the 
 platform, so that each person might dip from them with 
 cup or spoon. By the bowls were heaped loaves and 
 
84 Folk-Lore of the Mtisquakie Indians, 
 
 cakes of maize and acorn bread, other cakes of dried 
 and pounded cherries mixed with grease and honey, 
 trenchers on which the meat in the bottom of the 
 cooking-pots would be placed, and some small lumps of 
 grasshopper-bread. Other bowls contained a bitter 
 drink compounded of river-water, herbs, and burnt 
 maize. 
 
 The ghost-carriers' platform did not hold all the 
 feast of the dead. On other platforms, and on the 
 ground, food was served exactly as it was to the 
 ghost-carrier and those who ate with him, and in the 
 same profusion. All of it was paid for by No-chu-ning's 
 relatives. The feast began a little before noon, and 
 lasted until almost sunset, it being a necessity according 
 to the tenets of Musquakie decorum for the mourners 
 to continue to eat long after hunger is satisfied, so as 
 to delay the carrying away of the ghost. 
 
 When the chief saw that the sun was almost out of 
 sight, he climbed down from his place opposite the father, 
 and in a loud voice commanded the ghost-carrier to go 
 to the Happy Hunting Ground, and in a lower tone 
 reminded him that the light necessary for the journey 
 would soon fail. 
 
 At once the ghost-carrier dropped to the ground and 
 stalked to a group of young men, who, mounted on their 
 best ponies, awaited him with a fine steed saddled with 
 a new saddle, its mane and tail ornamented with beads 
 and ribbons, its face painted, its sides concealed under 
 bundles made up of all No-chu-ning's personal property 
 not buried with him. Before he could mount, all the 
 mourners ran to him, clung to him calling him by his 
 new name, " No-chu-ning,'' and entreated him not to leave 
 them. He stood rigid and silent, while the friends, softly 
 chanting the virtues of No-chu-ning and his fitness to 
 enjoy the delights of the Happy Hunting Ground, loosened 
 their hands and led them away. 
 
Death, Burial^ and Ghost-Carrying, 85 
 
 The moment he was free, the ghost-carrier sprang on 
 his horse and galloped toward the west, followed by the 
 mounted young men. 
 
 I was told that the ghost rode with the ghost-carrier 
 who had taken its name. "On the same horse?" I 
 asked. "No," was the answer. "Then where did it get 
 a horse.?" No reply, though the question was repeated 
 many times. " Is it the ghost of a horse that died in the 
 pasture?" "Maybe so." "Or, perhaps, some one has 
 killed a horse ? " " Maybe so." I asked a dozen questions, 
 but that exasperating "Maybe so" was the only answer 
 vouchsafed to them all. As the old custom, spoken of 
 again and again by the tribal historian as he tells of 
 the heroes, at the campfire, was to bury a horse with 
 every one not considered too old or too young to ride, 
 it is a fair inference that the ghostly mount is still made 
 sure of by the friends and relatives. It is likely that 
 the interference of an agent has caused them to do 
 secretly what was once done publicly. 
 
 When the ghost-carrier had ridden a few miles, he 
 made a detour and returned with his escort to the place 
 from whence he started, taking care to arrive after night- 
 fall. He was welcomed by the clan-chief and the mourners 
 as one returned from a long journey. Every one called 
 him " No-chu-ning " instead of " Pa-che-quas," the name 
 by which lie had formerly been known. After he 
 returned the greetings, he divided the bundles he had 
 carried among the young men who rode with him ; but 
 the horse he reserved for himself. 
 
 The next day, the widow and her mother built a 
 new wigwam for their family. In the evening, the widow 
 went with her mother to the older woman's clan-society 
 and had her face painted anew with the marks she wore 
 in her girlhood. 
 
 No-chu-ning's father and mother went back to their 
 own wigwam, where in a few days, the new No-chu-ning, 
 
86 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 the ghost-carrier, visited them, bringing presents of meal 
 and meat and announcing at the door that he was 
 No-chu-ning, their son, who would care for their old age. 
 He went home to his own parents after a short call, 
 but both the adopted parents who called him No-chu-ning, 
 and his parents of the blood who continued to call him 
 Pa-che-quas, felt that he was pledged to a son's duty 
 to the adopted ones, should they ever need his services. 
 
 The burial and ghost-carrying of a woman are like 
 a man's, except that a woman of her own age carries 
 the ghost, and is attended by girls. 
 
 Formerly, after the distribution of the ghosf s personal 
 effects, a scalp-dance was given, but now this is rarely 
 done. 
 
 For very young or very old there is no ghost-carrying. 
 They would get lost on the ghost-road. They must 
 linger about the encampment till the ghost of a relative 
 conducts them. 
 
 The funeral of little children is private, but the very 
 old are buried like other adults ; the children are placed 
 by their parents in the path to the river ; ^ the old people 
 lie in a roofed-in grave on the hill-top. 
 
 ^ In the hope that they may be reincarnated. See pp. 22, 23. 
 
XL 
 
 FOLK-TALES. 
 
 GIRLS AND BEAR.t 
 
 There were three young men, sons of a chief. One 
 was married, he had a nice young wife. The three 
 young men went out one day to hunt. The married 
 one said : " We must kill a bear, it is not right that a 
 chief's son has no bearskin for his wife to sleep on. I 
 must have the skin ; you may have half the meat.'* 
 The brothers said "Yes," and they went on, not talk- 
 ing though they had made their bear-fast and killed 
 and burnt the bear for that year. They saw a big 
 bear that ran very fast, and they ran after him till it 
 was dark and the bear ran into a ravine and got lost 
 away from them. Then they picked out a big tree on 
 a flat place on the side of the ravine and lay down 
 under it to sleep. It was an oak tree, and the branches 
 shook and many acorns fell down on them. They were 
 hungry and ate the acorns. By and by, the youngest 
 brother said : " There is not much wind, I do not like 
 the way this tree acts. Let us go away from here." 
 The brothers said : '* Huh ! huh ! you are a child to 
 fear the acorns. It is now the season for the acorns 
 to fall." " I do not like the tree," the youngest brother 
 said, and went away to the next one. When he had 
 gone the moon came out, and his brothers saw two 
 
88 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 fine girls in the tree. The girls said "come up/' and 
 the brpthers said "come down," many times. At last 
 the girls let down their hair-strings and drew the brothers 
 up, and the brothers stayed and slept there. In the 
 morning, when they would have come down, they could 
 not, for they were tied fast by the hair-strings of the 
 girls ; and when the youngest brother heard the crying 
 put of the brothers and would have helped them, the 
 old biear came out of a hole in the tree and he had to 
 run away. When he ran home, many braves went to 
 the tree, but they could not see the brothers though 
 they heard their voices. When the tree was cut down, 
 the brothers were not in it, their voices were heard 
 under the roots. When many dug in the ground they 
 could not find the brothers ; so the little brother had 
 his brother's wife and was the young chief. Those girls 
 were witches, and the bear was their father. 
 
 THE GREY-WOLF AND THE ORPHAN BOY. 
 
 There was an orphan boy went hunting by himself 
 in the woods. He was a very poor boy and had no 
 friends ; so that was why he went off hunting by him- 
 self. He went a long way, and did not find anything 
 to kill. At last he saw a very small grey-wolf's cub. 
 "You are an orphan, too," he said to it. "If you had 
 a mother she would crack your fleas. I will take you 
 for my brother." He went on ; he killed a bird and 
 gave it to the weak little wolf. By and by they went 
 to bed on the leaves. In the morning he killed more 
 birds, but the little wolf could not get enough. So they 
 went on fmany days, but the little wolf did not get fat. 
 In a year's time he did not get fat, but he got tall ; he 
 could hunt The boy was lonesome ; he did not like 
 to have no friend but a wolf. One day the wolf brought 
 a baby to him. It was a girl. It was pretty. It had 
 
The Grey- Wolf and the Orphan Boy, 89 
 
 good clothes and beads. The wolf talked, it was the 
 first time. The wolf said : *' Go to the village, it is-rnear." 
 He took the baby to the village, it was the chief's baby. 
 He had a grown daughter. The poor boy married her 
 and had plenty of all things. The wolf came one night. 
 He said : "I was fooling. I was not a cub, I was a 
 grandfather. I pitied you and wanted to make your 
 fortune. *' The wolf went away. The orphan boy criedy^ 
 but the wolf had made his fortune. When the -jjother 
 girl grew up, he had her too. 
 
 THE WOMAN AND THE TREE-GHOST. % 
 
 There was a woman got mad at her husband when 
 they were out hunting plums. She started to go home. 
 She had to sleep in the woods. In the night she waked 
 up and heard a man say : " I have found a wife." She 
 tried to run away, but the man caught her and would 
 not let her go. In the morning, she was tied to a tree, 
 and no man was there. She was in the woods a long 
 time. One day she got her hand loosed, she got her 
 knife and cut the thongs. She ran till she fell down. 
 Then it was almost night. She had a flint, she made 
 a fire to save her from the man, she kept by it. She 
 saw th6 man come running, he came up and fought 
 with her ; he fell down in the fire, and got up and fell 
 again. In the morning there was a burned tree where 
 he fell. She ran home, but she died next day. 
 
 THE MAN AND THE TREE-GHOST. 
 
 . A man was going along in the woods to find some 
 poles to cut. He saw an old tree and broke a limb. 
 The sap looked like blood. He was scared, he ran, he 
 fell down. He had hurt his foot, he could not go fast 
 any more. It was night, he had to stop. He made a 
 
90 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 big fire ; then the trees came around and slapped, but 
 they €ould not get him because of the big fire. In 
 the morning they went away. He was all scratched up, 
 but they did not get to kill him. He went home. He 
 was sick a long time. 
 
 THE MAN AND THE YOUNG GIRL. 
 
 A young man was out on the prairie. He had got out 
 of the woods. A girl came up and said : " You will do for 
 a husband.'' He could not see her very well, it was night, 
 but he loved her very much. Before day she said : " I 
 must go away and tell my parents." She would not let 
 him go. She said : " Wait here." He waited there. At 
 night she came back. Next day when he awoke she was 
 gone. He saw a young elm he had not seen. He peeled 
 the bark from a limb and ate it. At night she came back ; 
 she said : " I went to my mother ; she is sick ; she will 
 come up soon." She had her arm tied up. She said: "A 
 wild cat scratched me in the woods. My father killed it." 
 Next day she was gone. He did not like that ; he went 
 on. He got into the hazel brush ; he made a fire that 
 night in a clear place. She called him : " Come out here." 
 He said: *' Come here." A long time they called, then he 
 was mad, he lay down. His fire went down. She came 
 up. He said: "I think you are a ghost." He threw brush 
 on the fire. She screamed and ran away. He did not go 
 in the woods any more that year. 
 
 THE DUCK-WOMAN. 
 
 There were many young men and boys went swimming. 
 They saw some nice-looking girls a little way off, and 
 swam up to them. The girls laughed. They did not 
 talk, and they did not go away. When they had played 
 a long time, one young man got the girl he liked best 
 
The Duck-Woman. 91 
 
 near the shore, and then he took her up and ran home 
 with her. The others changed to ducks with black heads 
 and flew away. The girl was a good wife. She could not 
 talk. He said : " Don't go to the river." She did not go. 
 One day a hunter went there. He had many dead ducks. 
 He said : " Cook these ducks." She was scared, and ran 
 to the river and swam away. The young man could not 
 find her. He never liked any wife he had as well as 
 that duck-girl. 
 
 THE WOODPECKER-MAN. 
 
 There was a girl went out to pick some hazel nuts. She 
 went with other girls, but she got lost away from them in 
 the brush. A young man came up. He had fine clothes 
 and a red scalplock ornament. He said : " You will do for 
 a wife.'' She was afraid, and screamed. The other girls 
 did not hear her scream. He took her away to where were 
 many trees ; he took her where many dead trees stood, 
 beyond the live trees. She saw many woodpeckers, but 
 no people. She stayed there with him. She cried so 
 much that at last he let her go. He showed her the way 
 home. He said : '* You are a fool to go home." She got 
 home. She was despised. She wished she had not 
 gone home. She made a tent in the brush. She had her 
 baby there. He had a red scalp-lock. He grew up fast. 
 He knew all things. The people made him chief. Then 
 she despised her enemies. 
 
 PRAIRIE-CHICKEN WOMAN. 
 
 A prairie-chicken lost her husband. Soon she would 
 like to have another husband. All the birds and beasts 
 were afraid to marry her, because she was a witch. They 
 gave her presents, but they would not marry her. She saw 
 a woman in a field working. The woman had a little boy 
 following along after her. Prairie-Chicken made herself 
 
92 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 large like an eagle. She carried off the boy. She took 
 him home. She made medicine to make him grow. He 
 grew up and married Prairie- Chicken. The mother hunted 
 for him, but she did not know him when she saw him, 
 because he had grown up so fast. The old woman is in 
 the woods hunting for him yet. He was never in the 
 woods much. 
 
 THE AWL. 
 
 A .poor widow who had lost all her children had no one 
 to bring her some meat but three old dogs. Sometimes 
 the poor old dogs could not catch anything. One night 
 all lay down hungry, all were starving that night. Some- 
 body said : " There is plenty of meat across the river." 
 She said : *' Who said that ?" Four times it was said, and 
 then she found out that it was the awl in the awl-case on 
 the wall that was talking. The cover had come off the 
 case, so the awl could talk out. She talked to the awl, but 
 he would not talk any more ; so she called the dogs out, 
 and they crossed the river on the ice. There were many 
 rabbits found there and one deer. She killed the deer, 
 and the old dogs got spry and killed the rabbits. They 
 had plenty of meat till spring came on. 
 
 THE GIRL-WITH-SPOTS-ON-HER-FACE. 
 
 All of the girls went out to get plums. Some of the 
 girls were going to get married. The girl-with-spots-on- 
 her-face was going to marry soon. A band came along. 
 It was an enemy's band of young men, and they chased 
 the girls. Some girls ran and got killed, and some hid 
 and got away home, and some hid and got caught. Three 
 girls got caught, and the girl-with-spots-on-her-face was 
 one of the girls to get caught. The young braves took 
 them home, and those girls belonged to those braves that 
 took them home. The girls were mad, but they could not 
 
The Girl-with'Spots-on-her-Face. 93 
 
 help themselves at all ; but after a while the girl-with-spots- 
 on-her-face, she could help them. She made medicine in 
 the tent, when that brave that was her man she hated for 
 a husband was gone out. One night she made that man 
 sleep and all the people sleep, and she waked up those two 
 girls that were taken with her. They killed those three 
 men and no more, and she danced and sang with a corn- 
 ear in her arm to keep those folks asleep ; and they took 
 many ponies and went back to their own folks. The folks 
 were glad those girls got back, and the most for thq girl 
 that did all for them to get back ; and the young man that 
 was her young man before she was stolen fluted her again. 
 But she told him : " Young man, stop that ! I don't want 
 you any more, because you did not come after me when I 
 was a prisoner to that man I killed." So he stopped, and 
 she would not have any man in that camp ; and she could 
 not get a man, till a big brave came from a tribe far off, 
 and she said : ** Yes, I will go with this man." So she went 
 away, and it was a good thing for that tribe she went to. 
 The other girls, they married their men they had in the 
 first place to marry. They were not much of girls. 
 
 THE YOUNG MAN THAT KILLED HIMSELF 
 AND WAS MADE ALIVE AGAIN. 
 
 It was a long while back. Two young men made a 
 blood-friendship.^ One said : " Let us go out and steal 
 some horses.'' The other said: "Whooh! yes, we will 
 go out and steal some horses." They went a long way 
 to where a camp was with many horses of the Kickapoos. 
 The horses were on one side of the camp and the men 
 watched them. " Let us wait till it is night," said the 
 
 ^"Blood-friendship"' is made by- the two interested scratching their left 
 wrists with a knife and holding them together, so that the blood may mingle. 
 This makes a tie closer than relationship. It must be between those of the 
 same sex. No one may have more than one blood -friend. 
 
94 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 young man. "All right, let us wait." They waited. 
 They lay down in the long grass. When it was night, 
 one said : " I will go, you wait here." The other said : " No. 
 I will go." "No, I spoke first." So he went. He did 
 not come back in a long time, so the one who waited 
 killed himself. He could not live without his friend, he 
 could not go back. By-and-bye, the other came back. 
 He said : " I waited a long time, they watched too close, 
 I could not steal any." Then he found the other one, the 
 dead young man. He carried him a long way. He 
 stopped not at all till daylight, then he stopped under a 
 cotton-wood tree, the limbs high up. When he got his 
 strength back, he hung the dead one up to the high limbs, 
 he made medicine under him and made him alive. Then, 
 he let him down, and said : " Ain't you a nice fool making 
 me so much work to get all the pieces of your soul,^ 
 because I waited for the camp to go sleep } Well, now ! 
 go back and get horses by yourself." Then that nice 
 fool went back, next night. He stole many horses and 
 gave half to that young medicine-friend that saved his 
 life. 
 
 ^ A suicide's soul explodes, 
 
CATALOGUE OF MUSQUAKIE BEAD- 
 WORK AND OTHER OBJECTS. 
 
 The objects here catalogued are not " merely pretty and 
 picturesque/* they are, almost without exception, cere- 
 monial. This statement is made for the sake of those 
 students of folk-lore who have warned collectors of wild 
 peoples' property that they should neglect the merely 
 pretty and picturesque, and gather in such objects as 
 are ceremonial, a fair enough warning till one comes to 
 realise that to the wild man surrounded by civilization 
 and making a stand against it, everything that pertains 
 to his free and savage past has become a ceremonial 
 object. The Musquakie, hating and repelling civilization, 
 yet, to an extent succumbing to his environment and 
 availing himself of its conveniences, buys his plate and 
 cup, his flour, his shabby, cheap clothes, all for everyday 
 use and wear, from the white trader; but when the 
 time comes for his wedding and his burial, for the solemn 
 high festivals of his religion and their attendant 
 feasts, he must wear the garments his women make for 
 him, the ornaments fashioned by his skill and theirs, and 
 eat the food of his ancestors prepared in the old way 
 and served in the vessels that by usage have become 
 sacred. And as the husband is the wife is, with perhaps 
 an increase of affection for her gay garments, because 
 they enhance her good looks. 
 
g6 Folk-Lore of the MusquCtkie Indians. 
 
 WOMAN'S OR GIRUS DANCE COSTUME. 
 
 1. Silver Comb. 
 
 Even the silver comb, worn with as much vanity as a 
 white dame does a tiara of uncommon glitter, has a place 
 in the religious drama that claims so large a part of 
 Indian life ; for silver is " good medicine/' and the wearing 
 of it helps in the propitiation of the Meechee Manito-ah 
 and the Ancestral Animals or Totems, almost as much 
 as do the dancing and prayers. In addition, silver in the 
 hair is a protection to the soul, which lies under the 
 scalp-lock in a little bulb. The teeth of the middle of 
 the comb are supposed to touch the soul ; for a squaw's 
 hair is parted and combed smoothly over her temples, and 
 kept in place by this silver thing, which goes over her 
 crown and almost to her ears. 
 
 2. Cloth Hair-Wrapper with Bead Embroidery. 
 
 A squaw's hair, after she attains to puberty, is clubbed 
 at the back and wrapped in this envelope, which has on 
 it a design that was " pow-wowed " by the shaman as a 
 woman did the embroidery. It is kept in its place by 
 a hair-string of woven beads. 
 
 3. Hair-String. 
 
 This is a woman's most important possession, excepting 
 her " medicine." It is made for her by her mother or 
 grandmother, in what she tells the pale-face are "luck" 
 patterns. It also is much pow-wowed by the shaman, 
 and much disapproved of by the agents and missionaries, 
 who would gladly see the making of bead-work done 
 away with, and disapprove of the hair-string more than 
 the other varieties. By its aid its owner can work 
 sorceries ; or, if it is taken from her, by its aid she herself 
 is bewitched or enslaved. A woman will go from the 
 man she loves to a man she hates, if he has contrived 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork, 97 
 
 to possess himself of her hair-string; and a man 
 will forsake wife and children for a witch who has 
 touched his lips with her hair-string. Half the folk-tales 
 concerning women have to do with the use or loss of it. 
 
 4. Wrapper and Hair-String. (Figs. 4a-g.) 
 
 The queue is rather grotesque when viewed by itself; 
 but when a row of girls are dancing, the wrappers dangling 
 at their shoulders and the hair-strings reaching almost 
 to their feet make a good effect. After marriage, a 
 woman generally leaves off this adornment. She may 
 lose, sell, or give away the wrapper, but it behoves her 
 to hide the hair-string in a secure place. After her death, 
 somebody finds it and presents it to a friend. 
 
 A squaw's hair-wrapper is a talisman. Her hair-string 
 is a talisman when it is first worn, but it becomes some- 
 thing infinitely more sacred and precious, is transfused 
 with the essence of her soul, is — I know not whether to 
 say a part of herself, or her representative. If anyone gains 
 possession of it, he has her for an abject slave if he keeps 
 it, he kills her if he destroys it. Both hair-string and 
 wrapper are made for her by a relative, and are donned 
 by her at puberty. The wrapper is of black cloth with 
 a prayer embroidered on it. The string is of woven beads • 
 black, if the family can possibly afford to have the shaman 
 pow-wow it, geometrical figures to show that the worn an - 
 with-spots-on-her-face did likewise, and the symbol of her 
 mother's secret society. When she is dressed for her 
 wedding, she takes it off and hides it and not even her 
 husband may see it again or touch it. 
 
 The prayers said by the weaver (who must be her 
 mother, or one of her father's women-kin), the woman- 
 with-spots-on-her-face and the shaman, while a little 
 tobacco or a few blue beads are burned in the wigwam 
 fire, are, for the wrapper : — " Make her strong, make her 
 beautiful, give her a good husband, give her many fine 
 
98 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 children, let her be pleasant to her husband, let her 
 husband be pleasant to her " ; for the hair-string : — 
 " Let her become a wise woman, a woman-with-spots-on- 
 her-face, let her keep herself above reproach, let her be 
 safe from witches and devils, let no one get her hair-string 
 away from her, let her not work sorcery by means of 
 her hair-string." A " woman-with-spots-on-her-face " is a 
 woman made fetish in her girlhood by having many 
 Religion dances given in her honour, each dance entitling 
 her to a spot. 
 
 4<2 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 ■ 
 
 4a 
 
 Although No. 4 consists of one continuous strip with forked ends^ 
 it may conveniently be described in two parts : 
 
 {a) A beaded band, 670 mm. long by 20 mm. broad, worked in the 
 pattern shown in Fig. 4a. The bead-work ends diagonally, and the 
 strings are woven on without the beads to a length of 440 mm. on 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork. 99 
 
 one side and a length of 108 mm. on the other. The lower portions 
 of these interwoven strings are enwrapped in blue ribbon, the free 
 ends of which are tied together, thus making the strip into a loop, 
 consisting of bead- work (Fig. 4a) and interwoven strings. 
 
 {b) Below the blue bow, the strings continue as a pair of similar 
 queues. Each queue begins with bead-work 20 mm. broad with 
 a ground of pink beads, and the pattern shown in Fig. 4b. After 
 a length of about 200 mm. the queues fork as at Fig. 4c, but the 
 same pattern continues until at 135 mm. lower down it changes 
 as at Fig. 4d. About 135 mm. beyond, the pattern changes to that 
 shown in Fig. 4e, and 225 mm. lower down each strip forks as 
 shown in Fig. 4f. These 8 terminal portions are about 230 mm. in 
 length, 4 of them end in tassels of purple and orange ribbons, and 4 
 in blue and green ribbons, 45 mm. long. 
 
 The wrapper is of black cloth on the outside, and measures 375 
 mm. by 142 mm. The ends are bound with green ribbon. At each 
 end is an oblong panel of bead-work, one measuring iii mm. by 
 67 mm., the other 98 mm. by 68 mm. Each is outlined by a row of 
 white beads. The design is the same in both, though the colours 
 vary. The smaller panel is shown in Fig. 4g.^ 
 
 5. Silver Earrings. 
 
 6. Silver Finger Bings. 
 
 7. Silver Bracelets. 
 
 All silver ornaments are talismans and amulets. Silver 
 is "good medicine" always, and its potency is increased 
 and diverted when it is cut into jewellery 
 and graven with " luck " characters. The 
 work is done by a native smith, who does 
 not invoke the aid of the shaman. 
 Formerly, he bought his silver, in long 
 strips, from the Mexicans ; now he sends 
 to Colorado for it, and receives a purer 
 metal. Unfortunately, his skill is not what 
 
 ^In all the detailed figures the heraldic convention 
 for colour has been adopted, as is illustrated in the 
 accompanying figure. A further distinction has been 
 made by placing the lines close together when the 
 colour is dark and drawing them far apart when it is 
 light. 
 
 Yellow. 
 
 White. 
 
 Red. 
 
 Blue. 
 
 Si 
 
 Green, 
 
 Violet. 
 
 Black. 
 
 Orange. 
 
lOO Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 it was ; so, old pieces like these are preferable to new ones. 
 The seller of such warns the buyer to clean them with 
 a lye of yucca or corncob ashes and water from a spring, 
 or caught as it fell from the clouds. Bracelets are better 
 medicine than other silver ornaments. The smith works 
 without patterns and with only a knife, hammer, and awl 
 for tools. 
 
 8. Grirl's Woven Bead Necklaces. (Figs. 
 8a, 8b.) 
 
 The patterns indicate that the 
 woman-with-spots-on-her-face prayed 
 over them : I could not learn what 
 she said. 
 
 8a measures 400 mm. long by 18 mm. 
 broad. The pattern is shown in Fig. 8a. 
 
 8b measures 348 mm. long by 23 mm. 
 broad. The pattern is shown in Fig. 8b. 
 The oblique ends of the neck-bands are 
 bound with strips of leather which form the 
 strings. 
 
 •9. Married Woman's Necklace. (Plate I., fig. 9.) 
 
 A married woman's necklace is always long, worn 
 loosely and with ends fastened together, while a girl's is 
 a tight band round the throat. A widow wears no woven 
 necklace; but after the ghost has been carried away 
 she may adorn herself with many strands of beads and 
 glass wampum. 
 
 The black colour is to show that the shaman pow- wowed 
 it ; the diamond figure is the symbol of her secret society, 
 the blue " heart " is help in the realisation of her maternal 
 aspirations. Long ago, the Indian wife wore turquoise 
 necklaces to increase her fertility ; now, glass beads of the 
 turquoise colour or much darker are considered as 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork. loi 
 
 efficacious. An old necklace (such as this is) which has 
 belonged to several mothers of large families is more 
 prized than a new one. 
 
 The weaver says, "Make me have children, give me 
 many children," hundreds of times, as she works. The 
 shaman mumbles so that no one knows what he says. 
 
 Sometimes, if a woman is anxious to possess an unusually 
 fine colt, she hangs her necklace round her pony's neck for 
 a few days. 
 
 The bead necklace is iiio mm. long by 25 mm. broad. The inside 
 edges of the bands are sewn together for a distance of about 15 mm. 
 from their squared ends, which terminate side by side in tassiels, 75 
 mm, long, consisting of complicated strings of turquoise blue beads. 
 The Pattern is shown on Plate I., fig. 9. 
 
 10. Strings of Grlass Wampum. 
 
 Worn by young and old, married and single. Four 
 pounds are considered enough for one person to appear in. 
 The wampum, as well as the small beads for woven work 
 is imported from France by an old man who has had 
 a monopoly of the business among the allied tribes for 
 many years. He says he is told the beads are made 
 in Venice. He is a squaw-man (man with an Indian 
 wife), otherwise he would not have such a matter intrusted 
 to him. 
 
 11. Grirl's or Woman's Sleeveless Bodice, Ornamented with 
 
 Silver Discs and Breastplates. 
 
 With this must be worn many silver bracelets, so 
 that from wrist to shoulder the arm is almost covered 
 with them. On all the silver pieces are lines which 
 are equivalent to prayers. This bodice is such good 
 medicine that one having it on cannot become ill, and 
 one who is ill can be helped by donning it. But for 
 such a help to the invalid it must be given or lent, 
 not hired. 
 
I02 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 12. Girl's or Woman's Sleeved Bodice, Ornamented with 
 Spangles and Ribbon, and having Talisman of Bead 
 Embroidery on the Breast. 
 
 The little oblong talisman is supposed to cure pain 
 in the chest ; it was made by a " woman-with-spots-on- 
 her-face." The bodice itself has no special value. 
 
 13. Woman's or Girl's Doeskin Leggings, Painted and 
 Embroidered. 
 
 14. Woman's or Girl's Dance-Skirt. 
 
 The embroidery is a good " medicine " pattern. It 
 is perhaps worthy of remark that the geometrical 
 patterns are " medicine," while the prettiest floral 
 designs are merely ornamental. If a dancer's skirt is 
 what it should be she will not trip in the dance, nor 
 lose step. Unless the garment is an heirloom, she 
 makes it herself. The embroidery is pow-wowed before 
 it is sewed on. The shaman's fee is generally a puppy 
 or hen. 
 
 15, 15a. Women's Medicine-Bags. (Figs. 15, 15a.) 
 
 Next in importance to the ** medicine " and hair-string 
 They become fetish from holding the " medicine." They 
 are not made with any ceremonies, but after they have 
 held the "medicine" for even a very short time, they so 
 partake of its character that they must be as carefully 
 concealed as it is. Ordinarily the bag and ** medicine " 
 are worn under the left arm ; but if the woman has a 
 sick child, or one to be sent where there is danger, she 
 wraps the "medicine" in a rag and fastens it in the 
 child's scalp-lock, or under its arm, and hides the bag 
 in some cranny of the wigwam. If she is very sick her 
 medicine is rolled in her scalp-lock, while the bag 
 remains under her arm. 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork, 103 
 
 15. Woman's Medicine Bag. (Fig. 15.) 
 
 Has the symbols of the-woman-with~spots-on-her-face 
 (geometrical figures) because it belonged to one. A 
 medicine bag is made very 
 privately and without any 
 ceremonies. It becomes 
 fetish only after it has held 
 the medicine; but it con- 
 tinues so if the medicine is 
 taken out of it. 
 
 This bag is 90 mm. square. It 
 is made in two strips of bead- work, 
 70 mm. long and 45 mm. broad, 
 joined together side by side to 
 form one strip, which is shown 
 in Fig. 15. This strip is doubled 
 across the middle and sewn up 
 the sides to form the bag. It is 
 finished off at the top with a 
 thick roll of strings, round which is 
 wound a single string of blue beads. 
 The handle is of very long white 
 beads in imitation of dentalium 
 shells, separated by small red beads. 
 
 In Fig. 15 the whole pattern is 
 displayed, one half of which forms either side of the bag. 
 
 15a. Woman's Medicine Bag. (Fig. 15a.) 
 
 Has the symbol (waved lines) for running water. This 
 
 indicates that the " medicine " or fetish was taken from the 
 water. The pattern on the reverse side seems to be merely 
 ornamental. 
 
I04 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 This bag is made all in one piece, 220 mm. round the upper edge 
 and 95 mm. along the base line. The strings at the top are finished 
 oflf in buttonhole stitch. 
 
 The patterns are shown in Fig. 15a. The red zig-zags are so spaced 
 with brown thread that they appear brown in certain lights. 
 
 16. Woman's "Medicine." (Plate III., fig. 16.) 
 
 This is the object dreamed of when the woman had 
 
 her puberty-fast. It is her most precious fetish. If 
 
 she lose it she will have trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, 
 
 and every other adversity, ending in death, which will 
 
 not be a relief; for her spirit must wander and search, 
 
 unable to set out for the Happy Hunting Ground until 
 
 it is found. If it should be destroyed she would die at 
 
 once, but her ghost would not be vexed. If she die 
 
 with it on, it may be given to a friend. 
 
 This specimen consists of a strip of fur 195 mm. long by 25 mm. 
 broad. It was originally cut into three tails 70 mm. from the base ; 
 one of these is torn away and the other two are sewn together for the 
 greater part of their length. 
 
 17. Woman's Buckskin Moccasins. (Plate IV.) 
 
 With bead embroidery. The wearer belonged to the 
 Eagle or Bird Clan, for she has her totem worked into 
 the pattern. For one not of the totem to wear them 
 would subject her to ridicule. 
 
 Right moccasin, 260 mm. long, 180 mm. broad across the flaps. 
 The ground of the left flap is of a deep red colour, the front triangular leaf 
 is green, the one below it is yellow, the upper hinder leaf is pale blue, 
 and the lower, violet. The ground of the right flap is turquoise blue ; 
 the front bird is green ; it is perched on a red leaf, the lower leaf being 
 violet ; the hind bird is pink, it is [perched on a black leaf, the lower 
 leaf is yellow. On the top of the moccasin the central device is red, the 
 V-shaped area is light blue, the left side design is deep blue, the right 
 is green, the left -hind design is yellow, and the right, violet. All the 
 designs are outlined in white beads. 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork, 105 
 
 18. Buckskin Moccasins with Appliqu^ Patter^ of Silk. 
 The embroidery is merely for ornament. The 
 
 moccasins could be worn by anyone .of either sex in 
 the tribe, if a man could keep them on. The woman, 
 the burden-bearer, generally has the larger foot. 
 
 19. Woman's or Girl's Cloth Blanket Ornamented with 
 
 Applio[u6 of Ribbon. 
 
 As good a specimen of the garment as can now be 
 found. It is an imitation of the old-time whitened 
 buffalo-robe embroidered with porcupine quills ; but it 
 is an unworthy imitation at best, for the ancient model 
 had, beside the gaily painted quills, a border of the ivory 
 teeth of the elk and a fringe of scalps or dyed horse- 
 hair. When the weather is fair, the blanket is doubled 
 and folded about the skirt. It is kept in place by a 
 woollen sash tied in front. When the weather is bad, 
 the wearer unfolds it and makes it serve as both cloak 
 and hood. 
 
 20. Woman's or Girl's Sash made of Woollen Yarn. 
 
 It has the appearance of a tolerably complicated 
 knitting pattern ; but the fabricator works at it with 
 incredible swiftness, and never stops to count stitches. 
 The work is done with the fingers, without the aid of 
 needle or hook. 
 
 21. Bag in which Dance Costume is Packed when not Worn. 
 Woven with the fingers. The cotton threads are 
 
 fastened round wands set upright in the ground. The 
 yarn pattern is then filled in with the fingers. 
 
 MAN'S DANCE COSTUME AND ORNAMENTS. 
 
 22. Chiefs Scalp-lock Ornament. (Plate III., fig. 22.) 
 
 Eagle-feather set in bone, and tipped with red to show 
 that the wearer had killed a warrior. The bone socket 
 
io6 Folk' Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 is decorated with feather of "flicker" (golden-winged 
 woodpecker, Colaptes auratus), a bird quite as revered 
 a magician as the red-headed species {Melanerpes 
 erythrocephalus). A scalp-lock ornament is kept with 
 great care, as it helps to protect the soul. As the 
 tearing out of the scalp-lock makes the soul at its root 
 slave of the one thus obtaining it, so the possession 
 of its ornament and shield, which has absorbed some of 
 its essence, gives the possessor the ability to send the 
 rightful owner brain fever and madness. Also the 
 eagle feather is a badge of rank, only an hereditary 
 chief and his relatives having the right to wear it. A 
 man takes the same care of his scalp-lock ornament that 
 a woman does of her hair-string. It is said that very 
 intimate friends, after mingling the blood as it flows 
 from their left wrists, have been known to exchange 
 ornaments as a further proof of their oneness of heart. 
 
 The total length of this specimen is about 440 mm. It consists ot 
 a large white feather with a brown tip inserted into a bird's bone tube 
 in which a pair of lateral holes are bored across the bone, correspond- 
 ing holes also pass through the shaft of the feather ; below these the 
 bone is perforated by a slit in which is a piece of bent metal, at the end 
 of the bone is a pair of holes through which is passed a leather string. 
 The * flicker' feather is inserted in one of the lower lateral holes. 
 The underside of the eagle-feather is decorated with a central plume 
 consisting, from below upwards, of white fur, hair dyed bright red, a 
 band sewed round with black fibre in which are inserted strips of white 
 porcupine quills arranged in bands, in the centre is a band of green 
 quills and the top is surmounted by white fur and red hair. 
 
 23. Youth's Hawk's Feather Scalp-lock Ornament decorated 
 with Beaded Ribbon. (Fig. 23; Plate III., fig. 23.) 
 
 Could be worn by any youth in the tribe, but after 
 he became a man he would not wear it. He dare not 
 destroy it ; that might make his soul smaller ; he would 
 hide it. The wearing of hawk's feathers makes a youth 
 brave. 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork. 107 
 
 It has symbols for the shaman and the-woman-with- 
 spots-on-her-face, showing that both pow-wowed the work : 
 I could not learn what the large figure meant. 
 
 This scalp-lock ornament (Plate III., fig. 23) consists 
 of a strip 740 mm. long by 12 mm. broad, which forks 
 after a distance of 575 mm. and each end terminates 
 in a tassel of red wool. At the other end, the leather 
 string which binds the end of the bead-work is fastened 
 to the shaft of a hawk's feather, the shaft being bound 
 with red ribbon. Some dyed feathers are sewn trans- 
 versely to the hawk's feather. 
 
 The ground of the bead-work is in black, with a 
 pattern of turquoise blue diamonds with yellow centres, 
 which changes just above the fork into the pattern 
 shown in Fig. 23. 
 
 24. Scalp-lock Ornament of Dyed Hair. 
 
 Worn by the old men who cling to the 
 almost obsolete custom of having all the 
 hair, excepting the scalp-lock shaved off or 
 pulled out. Only one young man in the tribe 
 now has his hair so ornamented, and his father is blamed 
 for having it thus arranged for his puberty feast, though 
 all admit that it was the old custom. 
 
 25. Scalp-lock Ornament of Dyed Cow's Hair, Porcupine Quills, 
 and Feathers of Pinnated Grrouse. 
 
 The feathers are a protection against sun-stroke. 
 
 26. Scalp-lock Ornament of Cow's Hair, Porcupine Quills, Bone 
 Wampum, Brass Beads, and Silver Plate with engraved 
 Arrows forming Rain-cross. (Plate V., fig. 26.) 
 
 Worn by a dancer in the Religion dance, when it is 
 given to bring on rain. A dangerous ornament for one 
 who should in anyway transgress the rules of the dance. 
 Nobody tells what the penalty would be. Probably only 
 a few of high degree know. 
 
io8 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 The length of this object from the top of the metal plate to the end 
 of the band is 466 mm. The silver plate measures 54 by 37 mm., it 
 is decorated with a crenulated line with a dot above each apex, two 
 crossed arrows with their points upwards are engraved in the centre, 
 and between these are four stars. Below the plate are three pieces of 
 bone wampum, 76-78 mm. long, above and below there are several 
 brass beads. Below is a leather band, 300 mm. long and 40-45 mm. 
 broad, on which are fastened six narrow leather bands, 245 mm. long, 
 covered with bright red quill-work. On the six bands there are two 
 similar designs each of which consists of four parallel white bands and 
 two shorter bands above and below these ; all are bounded above and 
 below by a narrow green quill band ; on each side of the two central 
 white bands is an orange band. The sides of the main band are 
 provided with three pairs of looped strips of red quill-work, the end of 
 each strip terminates in a metal bugle, from which depends a tuft of 
 orange hair. Below the six long bands are six short bands 40 mm. 
 long, also bound round with bright red quill-work. Each long and 
 short band terminates in a metal bugle from which depends a tuft of 
 deep red hair. The large tuft of cow's hair dyed orange is about 500 
 mm. in length, and is attached to the back of the main band a short 
 distance above its lower end. 
 
 27. Shaman's Scalp-lock Ornament. (Plate V., fig. 27.) 
 
 The silver plate is tied at the root of the scalp-lock. 
 Below the plate dangle a small wand ornamented with 
 silver, ermine, and feathers, and strips of mink-fur held 
 together by beads. The value of silver as *' medicine" 
 has already been referred to; but the ordinary tribes- 
 man seems not to know why his shaman pays the Ute 
 or Sioux the price of a horse for the skin of a stoat or 
 ermine. The value of feathers is better understood by 
 the common people. Many folk-tales are of the good 
 fortune attendant on those who have a feather from the 
 plumage of these sorcerers that are birds or men at 
 will. Of course, the feathers are fetish. So too is mink- 
 fur. The " old man " wears this ornament on occasions 
 of ceremony. Sometimes, when he is dancing before a 
 sick person he takes it off, caresses and whispers to the 
 little wand, and then replaces it on his head. For 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork, 109 
 
 ordinary wear he has a silver disc the size of a crown- 
 piece at the root of his scalp-lock, to conserve the 
 powers of his soul. 
 
 The circular silver plate is 64 mm. in diameter ; near its margin is 
 engraved a scalloped circle ; the space within this is filled by a large 
 six-pointed plain star, in the centre of which is a small star (this alone 
 appears in the figure) ; the spaces between the rays of the large star 
 are filled by fine zigzag engraving. 
 
 The wand, which is about 220 mm. long (excluding the feathers), is 
 made of wood and bound round with black fibre, with two series of 
 vertical oblongs of quill-work, the oblongs being white above and red 
 below on one side and red above and white below on the other. In 
 the centre is an octagonal silver buckle incised with a scalloped circle, 
 at each end a band of white fur and a tuft of green and white 
 feathers. 
 
 The two fur pendants are 645 mm. long and are circular in section ; 
 80. mm. from the top they are bound with several rows of variously 
 coloured beads ; 265 mm. from the top is a length of white and violet 
 bead- work, consisting of violet squares on a white ground and of white 
 squares on a violet ground ; near the end are three rows of bead-work, 
 the upper one is pink with green diamonds, the central is very dark 
 violet with yellow diamonds, and the lowermost yellow with dark 
 violet diamonds (the two lower bands appear uniform in the photograph, 
 though they are very distinct in the original). From the lower 
 border depend four leathern strings which end in metal bugles. The 
 two fur pendants are fastened together above, and at this spot hang 
 down two flat leathern strings (260 mm. long), the upper portion of 
 each of which is sewed with yellow porcupine quill-binding, and six 
 short leathern strings which terminate in metal bugles. 
 
 28. Scalp-lock worn as Soul-protector. (Plate V., fig. 28.) 
 
 After a dance, or other ceremonial that calls the people 
 together, the hospitably inclined make feasts for their 
 friends. After a feast, at a given signal — a war-whoop 
 or drum-tap — the squaws throw sods on the fire, the 
 young men throw down and trample the torches. Then, 
 in the darkness, anyone may attempt to tear a lock 
 from any scalp. A few bold squaws go lock-hunting, 
 but the majority and all the children run to the wigwams. 
 
# no Folk' Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 Now and then one of the Amazons has a tress torn out, 
 but it is not of much value. The men carry knives 
 with which they cut the lock they tear out, if it is held 
 in a braid or bound fast in any way at the lower end. 
 It is not considered "good form" to take a lock large 
 enough to leave a conspicuous bald spot. After the 
 melee, everybody goes off in the best possible humour. 
 Many Musquakies disapprove of the custom. Those 
 who approve say that the little lock is a preventive of 
 madness, melancholia, cowardice, and dotage. 
 
 The total length is 600 mm. and the breadth 12 mm. The pattern 
 consists of a zigzag band, the upper part of which is red and the lower 
 pink with blue central spots, the intervening triangles are dark blue. 
 The hair does not look like human hair. 
 
 29. Bead Head-bands with pattern showing Secret Society 
 Emblems, (a. Plate I., fig. 29; b. fig. 29b.) 
 
 29a. Head-band with Pattern showing Wearer's Degree in 
 Clan Society. 
 
 It belonged to a man high in the Fish or Water clan, 
 and has in it the cross, the symbol of the Rain-Serpent. 
 Every clan is said to have in its highest degree devotees of 
 the Rain-Serpent ; but it is considered to be most propi- 
 tious to the Fish clan. The Serpent, one must remember, 
 is not a Totem, but a malignant being that all the Totems 
 are entreated to assist in placating ; and the supposed 
 favour it shows the Fish clan raises this clan in times of 
 drought or excessive rains above even the Eagle clan. 
 Consequently, this degree of the cross in the clan above- 
 mentioned is the most important in the tribe. Though 
 the members of it deny every assertion made about 
 it by gossips, there is a belief current that their rites are 
 phallic. When there is to be a Religion dance to bring on 
 rain, there are, beforehand, many meetings of the men who 
 wear these symbols on their heads or legs, with the Fish 
 clansmen in the lead. As they go to the wigwam where they 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork. 
 
 iir 
 
 hold the meetings, they have a boy walking before them 
 with a live snake (a water-moccasin, or rattle-snake) in a 
 basket; and they hum an air without words, and make 
 gestures that at any other time .would be considered in- 
 excusably indecent. At the door of the wigwam they take 
 the snake from the boy and send him away. When asked 
 why the cross symbolises the great serpent that controls 
 the water supply of the heavens and the earth, the women 
 explain that a long time ago Manito-ah laid a stick across 
 the serpent in reminder that it was not all-powerful, but 
 must yield to him ; the men say they 
 don't know. 
 
 This band is 570 mm. in circumference by 
 30 mm. The groimd is of white beads, with 
 alternate blue and white beads along the 
 margin. The design is shown in Pate I., fig. 29. 
 
 29b. "Luck'' Pattern in Head-band.^ 
 
 This pattern appears in both leg and 
 head bands. Nothing could be learned 
 of it except that it was sure to bring 
 good luck to the wearer. When asked 
 if it were a society band, everyone pre- 
 tended not to understand the question, 
 but both men and women said, " Luck 
 band, luck band, bring heap good luck." 
 
 No. 29b measures 565 mm. by 44 mm. and 
 is fastened together at the ends by strings. 
 The pattern is shown in Fig. 29b. 
 
 296. 
 
 ^ There is another bead head-band which is more than a mere ornament. Its 
 pattern is a bright butterfly on a blue ground. It is worn to cure headache. 
 It is noteworthy because there is a belief prevalent among the Musquakies that 
 while the body sleeps the soul sometimes escapes from the bulb at the root of 
 the scalp -lock and wanders about in the form of a butterfly. In consequence 
 of this belief it is considered wrong to wake a friend suddenly, lest his soul 
 might be absent and he thus be rendered idiotic. Of course it is meritorious 
 to surprise an enemy out of his wits. The homeless butterflies are greedily 
 sought and eaten by devils, as the eating of souls increases their power. 
 
112 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 30. Silver Head-band worn as Talisman. 
 
 Prevents diseases of the head and blindness. ^ 
 
 31. Silver Earrings. 
 
 32. Silver Earrings. 
 
 33. Shell Wampum Earrings. 
 
 34. Necklace of Beads with Carved Bone Ornament. 
 
 The blue beads are fetish, because they are an imita- 
 tion of turquoise. Long ago, the old people say, they 
 made perilous trips to the southwest and obtained tur- 
 quoise, and made it into beads that kept off every 
 misfortune. It is singular that the glass imitation is 
 considered as efficacious. 
 
 35. Necklace of Glass Wampum. 
 
 Worn at dances and feasts, and by both sexes. Men 
 make presents of it as if it were genuine wampum, but 
 they never throw it on the council-fire. 
 
 36. Necklace of ''Dutch" or Bone Wampum, and Beads. 
 Bone wampum is now made in Connecticut and sold 
 
 by the Indian agents. Tradition says it was first manu- 
 factured by the Dutch of New York to take the place 
 of the precious clam-shell wampum of the natives. It 
 is worn by dancers, and given as presents to those who 
 take part in the Religion dance. 
 
 37. Necklace of Shell Wampum. 
 
 Made of the shells of a species of land snail. Worn 
 at the dances and used as money. 
 
 38. Necklace containing all the most precious kinds of Wam- 
 
 pum — Ivory, Cowrie, Snail-shell, White and Purple Clam- 
 shell, and Brass Beads made by the native smiths 
 from cartridges. 
 
 Four beads of the purple wampum are cast into the 
 
 great council-fire every time it is lighted. They are 
 
 made from the purple spot, or " eye," of the clam-shell, 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork, 113 
 
 A whole day's work is required for one bead. This 
 necklace is considered worth a herd of ponies, each bead 
 being worth a pony or ten dollars, a pony being a 
 standard of value. The necklace was obtained from the 
 widow of a chief. She declared it was genuine when 
 asked if it was not a glass imitation. The purple bead 
 and the white one at the fastening are undoubtedly 
 genuine clam-shell ; but the others are suspiciously pretty 
 and regular. They are said to have belonged to Black 
 Hawk — the whole necklace, not merely one sort of beads. 
 When, where, and how the long ivory beads were made 
 has been forgotten. The material for the brass beads 
 came from a battle-field. The cowries, so the Musquakies 
 say, were a long time ago spit into a chief's hand by 
 a man who immediately after ran away. 
 
 39. Silver Finger^rings. 
 
 Turtle and Eagle totems are engraved on them. Turtle 
 rings are worn by members of the Fish or Water Clan 
 to insure long life. The Eagle ring merely indicates the 
 clan of the owner, and does not affect his health or fortune. 
 
 40. Silver Bracelets. 
 
 " Whoo-lau-kee-chee" in the Musquakie tongue, meaning 
 sacred or holy band. The same term is applied to a 
 dancer's bead-garter. The plural is whoo-lau-kee-chee-oc. 
 Considered very good medicine. 
 
 41. Bracelets of Porcupine-auills. 
 
 " Whoo-lau-kee-chee-ocy The name seems to indicate 
 that the shape of the ornament, and not its material, 
 makes it "medicine." 
 
 42. Dance-sMrt. 
 
 A garment bought from a white trader, and made 
 worthy to be worn in the dances by the work of men 
 and women Musquakies, the men making the silver discs 
 and large beads, the women the embroidered "breast- 
 
114 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 plate" which (with the shaman's pow-wow assisting) is 
 a protection from diseases of the lungs. 
 
 43. Embroidered "Breastplate." 
 
 Pattern merely ornamental, but the materials were 
 " pow- wowed " as used in it ; it is a protection from diseases 
 of the lungs. 
 
 44. Talisman. 
 
 Worn on the breast 
 the lungs. 
 
 as protection from diseases of 
 
 45. Talisman to be worn on the 
 Breast as protection against 
 Consumption. (Fig. 45.) 
 
 The arrow in the embroidery 
 is to intimidate the devil that 
 enters by a man's mouth (if he 
 leave it open when he sleeps), 
 and gnaws his lungs. Indians 
 as often die of horror of their 
 devil as of the consumption 
 itself. 
 
 The breastplate of bead-work, 125 
 mm. by 80 mm., is sewn on to a 
 strong foundation of leather. The 
 pattern is shown in Fig. 45. 
 
 46. Zerape of Buckskin with Sioux Embroidery. 
 
 Must have been a present from a Sioux visitor, though 
 a Musquakie wore it many times in the dances, where 
 it was distinguishable from other such garments by the 
 beadwork, but not by the material or shape. 
 
 47. Treaty-Belt of Glass Wampum passed from the Sacs to 
 
 the MuscLuakies. (Plate VI., fig. 47.) 
 
 One precisely like it was passed from the Musquakies 
 to the Sacs. With the exception that the pattern is 
 brown, instead of purple, it is a very good copy of the 
 treaty-belts sent to the first white settlers with whom 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork, 115 
 
 the Musquakies had dealings. In general effect, it re- 
 sembles the still more ancient belts of braided brown 
 bark with a decoration of white shell-wampum. This 
 belt is said to be old — as old as the affiliation of the 
 tribes; but no one puts a date on its manufacture. At 
 any rate, it is not new, for the beads are falling apart 
 from the rottenness of the thread on which they are 
 strung. It was formerly worn by the head-chief at his 
 council. It was sold as a revenge for the affront of the 
 Sacs on the Nemaha Reservation, who endeavoured to 
 have the few Musquakies on that reservation expelled. 
 
 The length is 1,450 mm. and the average breadth loo mm. The 
 pattern is made of brown transparent beads while the ground is made 
 of opaque white beads. 
 
 48. Bead-Belt recounting Tribal History. (Fig. 48 ; Plate VII., 
 fig. 48.) 
 
 Worn during the dancing by 
 a young chief, but held in the 
 hands by the tribal historian as 
 he stands by the council-fire 
 recounting what it commemo- 
 rates. Its story is of the flights 
 of the tribe, westward from the 
 Iroquois, eastward and south- 
 ward from the Sioux, and 
 northward from the Shawnees. 
 It is not so interesting as the 
 great -belts that tell of the 
 kindnesses of the lowas and 
 Ojibways ; but these cannot 
 be bought, nor coaxed away 
 by presents. 
 
 The belt has a story which 
 is duly recounted by the tribal 
 historian as he holds it up 
 before the people gathered about the council-Are, but 
 
1 1 6 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 he does not seem to be reading it from the pattern 
 into which the beads are woven. He speaks as 
 follows : " Rough was the trail, broken was the trail, 
 hard for the young braves to go over, too hard for the 
 old men, the women and the children to flee along. Cold 
 were the days, and the nights colder and with storms. At 
 first came rain, and then the snow followed. The snow 
 was thick in the air, on the ground ; we went like blind 
 men, like lame men, stumbling and falling. It was hard 
 going for the pursuers, whose bellies were broad with meat 
 and corn ; it was harder for us who fled from their great 
 numbers with our belts tightened on our emptiness, with 
 our legs grown thinner than a deer's legs, and our short 
 breaths bursting our breasts. Many babies died on their 
 mothers' backs. Mothers died, and there was none to take 
 up their live babies. Many children fell and could not get 
 up. The old people fell down and died. If any fell and 
 did not die, the friends clubbed them out of pity and went 
 on. There was no food. There was no fire. The people 
 ate roots ; they ate bark and worms, if they could find any 
 in the bark. The enemy came nearer. They came nearer. 
 They sang songs louder than the wind ; they gave the 
 war-cry loud and terrible. Our men were poor in mind : 
 our women began to sing their death-songs back of the 
 tongue, because they could not speak out ; they could not 
 raise the voice. All the children had died. All the old 
 people had died, and many young mothers and braves. 
 None might stop and mourn for the dead ; they received 
 no honour, they lay unburied ; they were not started on 
 the Ghost Road, the road to the Happy Hunting Ground. 
 Never have they been sent to the Happy Hunting Ground. 
 We shall not see them again, we cannot find them." 
 (Sounds of mourning from the assemblage.) "But the 
 good Manito-ah had not forgotten us. The good Manito-ah 
 had the hard life and the poor mind (grief, melancholy) of 
 his people in reniembrance. He sent bufialo to meet them, 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork, 117 
 
 many and easy to kill, buffalo with fat humps and delicate 
 tongues to nourish the people. We had much meat, meat 
 in plenty; there was plenty of dried meat, of pounded 
 meat, till the warm winds came ; the birds came and the 
 deer. The enemy ceased from following. The people 
 waited in pleasant places. The grass grew, they made 
 wigwams of the grass. They had berries, they had plums 
 and nuts. The women bore children. The new-born 
 children were fat, they were strong, they threw out their 
 arms, they kicked with their strong legs when they were 
 newly born." (Grunts of satisfaction from the audience.) 
 "The enemy came, the Dacotahs. They were hunting 
 when they came upon us. They came upon us in the 
 Moon of Nuts (October). They made war parties. They 
 were very many. Our people had not enough young men 
 to kill them and take their wives and horses. Our people 
 went away. They went back on the old trail. They heard 
 the ghosts calling. They were poor in mind when they 
 heard the ghosts calling, they turned from the old trail. 
 They went along the great river, they faced the south 
 wind. They went a long journey. They went to the 
 Shawnees. The Shawnees were very pleasant. They met 
 our people, the fleeing people ; they comforted us. They 
 built fires. All night they cooked the pounded corn, the 
 fat of deer and the flesh of young dogs. They fed us till 
 our bellies were tight with cooked food and plums mixed 
 with cherries. Very many were the bowls of food they 
 gave; very fine were the new clothes they gave, and beds 
 of furs and robes well tanned. Our people had friendship 
 with them a long time ; we went out with them to hunt, to 
 steal from their enemies, to kill their enemies and count 
 coup ^ on them and bring back their scalps. The Kickapoos 
 spoiled the friendship. They told crooked words (lies) on 
 our people ; they put on moccasins like ours and made 
 
 ^ Not the man who kills, but the man who first touches the body gets the 
 credit of the killing. 
 
1 1 8 Fplk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 trails to the springs ; they spoiled the springs ; they killed 
 
 some of the old blind people of the Shawnees, and the 
 
 tracks (footprints) were like ours. The Shawnees were 
 
 deceived ; they had the bad heart toward us, they drove 
 
 us out. No more we hunted together ; no more we made 
 
 war parties together and scalped the enemies and counted 
 
 coup, and brought back the scalps for the girls to dance 
 
 with. We were not many warriors ; though the women 
 
 had borne many children, they had not yet grown up. We 
 
 were a little people, though strong in heart, a very valiant 
 
 people. We were driven a\v^ay, we had to go away. We 
 
 went away again fleeing by night and by day. We followed 
 
 the river, and came into a pleasant country having fruit 
 
 and nuts, having buffalo, having fish in the waters, having 
 
 many birds, and beasts with furs, and earth suitable for the 
 
 women to sow with corn and melons. We were in this 
 
 good country a long time. We have come back to it. 
 
 Many children have grown up here ; we are now a great 
 
 people, the tribe is strong. All this the belt tells, the belt 
 
 woven in the house of the historian, as he desired it to be 
 
 woven, as he commanded it to be woven, as he commanded 
 
 the old woman to weave it, as the old woman, She-an-o-ah, 
 
 wove it as he commanded, in the old time, telling about 
 
 the old time, not the oldest time of all, the time of the 
 
 Brothers before all other times." 
 
 The bead- work of this belt is 570 mm. long by 76 mm. broad, and 
 the square ends are finished off with a fringe of red wool. Each 
 fringe consists of seven braids of wool, into which the weaving strings 
 are plaited for a short distance after which the long ends of the wool 
 are left loose. The entire fringe is 320 mm. long at one end and 380 
 mm. long at the other. The belt is shown on Plate VII., fig. 48, and 
 the detail is shown in Fig. 48. 
 
 49. Bead-belt with Secret Society Emblems. (Fig. 49.) 
 
 I cannot find out anything about this belt, except that it 
 belonged to a Fish Clan man of high degree and that it has 
 the cross, the symbol of the Rain Serpent. 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork, 1 1 9 
 
 This belt is 790 mm. long by 70 mm. broad, with a partly braided 
 fringe of various brightly coloured wools looped round the binding of 
 calico, which borders the square ends. The pattern is shown in Fig. 49. 
 
 50. Bead-belt with Secret Society Emblems. (Fig. 50.) 
 
 Each of the seven clans of the Musquakies has its 
 secret society; and each society has its emblems, which 
 are displayed in the painted dots and lines on the faces 
 of its members, and in the belts they wear at the dances. 
 I cannot find out anything about the patterns in this belt. 
 The belt is 1020 mm. long by 76 mm. broad. The square ends are 
 finished off with fringes consisting of 9 plaits of red wool and yellow 
 
I20 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 beads. In each fringe the 3 central plaits appear to have been made 
 shorter than the others and without beads, the outer plaits have 
 alternate lengths of braided wool and beads. Each plait ends in a 
 tassel of red wool. In the beaded plaits a double row of beads placed 
 alternately to one another is made by threading a bead on to each 
 outside string of the plait. Below this pattern (which occurs at the 
 top of most of the braided elements of the fringe) are alternate lengths 
 of unbeaded braiding and two or three lengths consisting of three 
 single rows of beads (5-1 1 in number) threaded on the three strands 
 of the plait, and themselves treated as half of the cycle of a plait. 
 
 51. Bead-belt with Secret Society History in the Pattern. 
 (Fig. 51a, 51b ; Plate VII., fig. 51.) 
 
 5U 
 
 Such belts are owned by the shamans of the secret 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork, 121 
 
 societies. It is said that at the meetings of a society, 
 
 the shaman takes off his belt, holds it in his hands 
 
 and recounts the history for which it stands, but this 
 
 is merely hearsay; no secret society man either affirms 
 
 or d^ies it. The secret of the belt is jealously kept 
 
 by those who know it. It is utterly impossible to learn 
 
 what the patterns stand for. No one outside the cult will 
 
 know until the Musquakies give up the ancient religion. 
 
 This belt consists of a band 810 mm. long with an average breadth 
 98 mm. terminating at each end in 4 narrow strips, about 350 mm. 
 long (but the length is variable) and 18 mm. broad. Each of these 
 strips forks 65-70 mm. from the ends, which are finished off with 
 tassels, averaging 150 mm. in length, made of red wool. The pattern 
 of the broad belt is shown in Plate VII., fig. 51, and the details are 
 shown in Figs. 51a and 51b, the latter being the central design. 
 Owing to the imperfections of the photographic process the patterns 
 of the narrow strips do not appear in the plate ; the patterns are 
 practically similar in all the strips, though the colours vary : the 
 outermost strip at each end has a black design on a yellow ground ; 
 the next one has a violet design on a yellow ground ; the next one 
 a torquoise blue design on a pink ground ; the innermost one a black 
 design on a lavender blue ground. 
 
 52. Killikinnick Bag (Plate VI. fig. 52) and Society Belt. 
 
 These bags hang from the belts of the dancers as 
 
 conveniences as well as ornaments. They hold, besides 
 
 the killikinnick or sacred tobacco (which is more red 
 
 willow bark and partridge-berry leaf than tobacco), a 
 
 variety of amulets, such as the stone from the eye of 
 
 a catfish, a round pebble and stone awl. When not 
 
 worn, they serve as cases to pack the belts in. Some 
 
 are of bead-embroidered buckskin ; but the very old 
 
 ones are made from the larger intestine of the buffalo, 
 
 and decorated with quill embroidery. 
 
 This bag is made of a folded piece of soft buckskin, the two edges 
 of which are dentated and sewn together to form one side of the bag. 
 The top upper trefoils of the bead-work on the figured side are 
 torquoise blue, the stems and base are violet, the central trefoil is deep 
 red, the two downwardly projecting lobes are green, the lower side 
 
122 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie IndiaHs, 
 
 leaves are yellow and the lowermost blue and black. On the other 
 side of the bag is a different design. At the neck of the bag is a 
 leathern fringe and above this an interrupted double row of beads, the 
 upper beads being yellow and the lower green. At the bottom of the 
 bag, the two folds are cut into a double fringe with eight flaps on each 
 side ; these are bordered with beads on the figured side, the colours 
 are two black, two white, two red, and two green ; on the other side 
 the colours are more varied. The total length of the bag is 470 
 mm. and its breadth 200 mm. 
 
 53. Youth's Bead-belt of Two Patterns. (Plate I., fig. 53; 
 Plate VII., fig. 53.) 
 
 The two patterns indicate that he has lost his father by 
 death or divorce, and has, consequently, gone over to his 
 mother's clan, that is, has become according to tribal law, 
 the son of his maternal grandfather or uncle. Half of the 
 belt is like his father's, the other half like his grandfather's. 
 
 The patterns are the symbols of the secret societies of 
 the youth's father and nearest male relative of his mother. 
 Each pattern symbolises not only a clan society but also 
 the degree to which the father or maternal relative had 
 attained. Indian children as a rule are fond of ornament. 
 But no boy willingly wears such an one as this ; he is 
 ashamed of being what his white brother would call a 
 " turncoat,'' and his red companions scoff at as " the boy 
 who has changed his clan like a girl who has married." 
 
 In addition to showing what the father's clan and degree 
 were and the mother's next of male kin are (the father 
 having been lost by death or divorce), the belt has its story 
 which is duly related to its unfortunate possessor by his 
 mother, or grandmother, or whosoever wove it. Here is 
 the story of this belt, which belonged to George Little- 
 River till he was a man and released from guardianship : 
 "The story of Little-River, his story when he is Little- 
 River of the Fish Clan, his story when he was Brown 
 Hawk of the Eagle Clan. He is his father's child, Big 
 Catfish's child. He is his mother's child, Sweetwater's 
 child, she bore him. She is the daughter of Big Catfish. 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork. 123 
 
 He has her in his wigwam, he has Little-River in his wig- 
 wam. Little- River was not there always, he was in the 
 wigwam of his father, in the wigwam of Green Hawk, his 
 father. Green Hawk died, he went over the Ghost Road, 
 he waited for no one. A devil in his breast killed him, a 
 little devil, little and stubborn. It would not come out, it 
 would not come out for the shaman or the dancers ; he 
 died by it, though much was spent that the shaman and 
 the dancers might overcome it. He was a brave man. 
 Green Hawk was a brave man, he was a warrior terrible to 
 his enemies, but he could not kill the little devil, he could 
 not overcome it. Great was the mourning for him, Sweet- 
 water and his friends wept blood for him. Now she 
 has gone back to her clan, the clan she was born in, her 
 father's clan, the clan of Big Catfish, her father. She has 
 taken the boy to the clan ; he is of the clan ; his name is 
 Little-River ; he is the beloved of his people ; he has for- 
 gotten his father. Green Hawk's people ; they are his 
 relatives no more. He is truly a son of Big Catfish ; his 
 belt puts him in mind of Green Hawk, but Green Hawk's 
 people are not his people. Happy is Big Catfish that he 
 has a young son for his old age. The belt tells it, it tells 
 Little-River everything." 
 
 There is no secrecy about this recital, anyone is welcome 
 to hear it. It is chanted instead of spoken, and is never 
 
 varied by a syllable. 
 
 The bead-work of the belt which is shown in Plate VI I., fig. 53, is 866 
 mm. long with an average breadth of 45 mm., and is worked on black 
 threads. The patterns on the two halves of the belt are quite different, 
 the junction of the two patterns and the colour scheme of the belt are 
 shown in Plate I., fig. 53. The lower portion is divided into 4 by the 
 colours of the ground-work, which is black and light blue alternately. 
 On the black background is a pair of central yellow designs, next to 
 these are similar designs in blue, and beyond again are pink. On 
 one blue background is a pair of central designs in black, next to 
 these are similar designs in yellow, and beyond again are pink. 
 The terminal blue portion has a pair of red and yellow designs and is 
 probably unfinished. 
 
1 24 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 54. Man's Medicine Bag. (Fig. 54.) 
 
 Has the symbols for woman- with-spots-on-her-face, 
 probably, because she made it ; of the shaman, from the 
 idea, perhaps, that any black beads would be lucky, and a 
 representation of an animal which I was told was the 
 owner's totem. This statement I put no faith in, as the 
 creature depicted bears a slight resemblance to a mountain 
 lion and none to the Musquakie totems, which are Eagle, 
 Fox, Bear, Antelope, Beaver, Fish, Raccoon. 
 
 54 
 
 This bag is 1 10 mm. long and 98 mm. deep, and is made all in one 
 piece. The top is bound with black ribbon, bordered on its lower 
 edge with an incomplete row of beads. The base of the bag is bound 
 with a piece of dark green ribbon, the ends of which project 40 mm. 
 beyond the bag on either side. The ribbon is bordered by rows of 
 variously coloured beads. Fig. 54 shows the design on both sides. 
 
 55. "Medicine." (Plate III., fig. 55.) 
 
 This eaglets claw was worn as a " medicine " because 
 the owner of it, at the time of his puberty fast, dreamed 
 of an eagle. Before he could be recognized as a man by 
 the tribe, he must have obtained some portion of the bird 
 without harming or causing another to harm it ; though, 
 if he saw a bird killed by a hunter who had no know- 
 ledge of his need, he might secretly possess himself of 
 a feather or claw ; or, it would be no crime for him to 
 steal an old feather, bone, or claw, even from the head- 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork. 125 
 
 chief. Ordinarily, if one desire a thing, it is enough to 
 say to the owner " I dreamed of this, give it me " ; but 
 for the life-medicine this may not be, as no one may 
 know what the medicine is till death reveals the secret. 
 
 56. Shaman's Medicine-bag. (Fig. 56.) 
 
 An inconvenient size for carrying inside the shirt, but 
 there it must be kept. Besides his " medicine," it should 
 contain a number of amulets, packets 
 of squirrel, grouse, woodpecker, duck, 
 and cuckoo or "rain-crow" bones, 
 and a pipe or tube for sucking the 
 demons of disease from the bodies 
 of the sick. 
 
 It has a pattern commonly used on 
 moccasins. It was a gift to the shaman from a woman 
 who believed his pow-wow cured her lame foot. 
 
 This bag without a handle measures 165 mm. by 125 mm., it is 
 made on strong leather and lined with red flannel, the bead- work is on 
 one side only. It consists of four broad bands of pink diamonds on a 
 violet ground, separated by yellow bands with black squares or 
 rhomboids, as shown in Fig. 56. The base of the bag has a double 
 leathern fringe, the ends of which are 1 5 mm. long and 70 mm. long 
 respectively, and the longer strips bear metal bugles at their ends. 
 From one side of the upper edge of the bag depend three strings of 
 alternate plaited red wool and yellow beads, each ending in a red 
 tassel, the strings being essentially similar to those which form the 
 fringe of No. 50. 
 
 57. Pipe or Tube for sucking Disease from the Bodies of the 
 Sick. (Plate III., H- 57.) 
 
 The shaman, after some hours of dancing, singing, and 
 praying around his patient, announces that the devil is 
 now stupefied, and that the time has come to draw him 
 out. He then bares the afflicted part of the body, applies 
 the pipe, and sucks with great vigour. From time to time 
 he turns his back to the invalid, spits, shakes his head 
 at the result, and falls to sucking again. Finally, he 
 
126 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 announces to the patient and those waiting- at the door 
 
 of the wigwam that he now has the disease-devil, at the 
 
 same time displaying in his palm a spider, toad, or other 
 
 little ugly insect or reptile. Immediately the patient is 
 
 forsaken, all the friends and spectators, led by the shaman 
 
 himself, escort the devil across a stream of running water. 
 
 The shaman drops it, then all race back, hand over mouth, 
 
 lest the devil enter one of them. The pipe is purified by 
 
 being laid on a hot stone encircled by embers, on which 
 
 tobacco is sprinkled. After the purification, the pipe is 
 
 returned to the bag under the shaman's arm. 
 
 The tube is made of a grained grey stone and is 125 mm. in length ; 
 at one end is an old fracture. The tube is oval in section with flattened 
 sides, the bore is oval at the smaller end and circular at the broken 
 end. 
 
 58. Leggings of Fringed Doeskin. 
 
 Evidently an old pair, for they are beautifully tanned. 
 The tanning shows that it is the work of a Musquakie 
 woman, the women of this tribe having been famous for 
 their skill at this work. Now they have no deer, and in 
 consequence buy their skins from the Utes, who misuse a 
 skin so that it looks brown and woolly. The Musquakie 
 women have lost the secret of their tanning. 
 
 59. Breech-clout or Gee-string of Embroidered Cloth. 
 
 Sold by its former owner, a proof that environment 
 affects even a Musquakie. A decade ago a man would 
 have parted with his scalp-lock almost as readily as with 
 this article of his attire. When one was too shabby to 
 wear it was burned, and the ashes scattered. It was a 
 thing to conjure by, and is yet with the old people. Who- 
 soever obtained it had the owner in his power. 
 
 60. Pair of Leg-bands or G-arters. (Plate II., fig. 60.) 
 
 " WhoO'lau-kee-chee '* is the name applied indifferently to 
 this indispensable article of a dancer's dress, and to brace- 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork. 127 
 
 lets. It is a holy name, the Musquakie will tell you, and 
 not to be uttered lightly. A garter is fetish, woven with 
 many prayers and incantations, the shaman being as busy 
 day after day as the woman who weaves the beads. The 
 pair sometimes matches the sash in colour, but never does 
 in pattern. The pattern may be the dancer's society- 
 emblem or merely ornamental, but prayers must go into 
 every inch of it. If the prayers were omitted at any stage 
 of the work, the dancer who wore the garters would spoil 
 the dance by stumbling or making mistakes in the evolu- 
 tions. The garters are tied over the leggings below the 
 knee, and the fringed ends hang in a long/ tassel at the 
 outer side of the leg. 
 
 In No. 60 the pattern is said to represent the dance- 
 house. Why, no one can explain, as the dance-house is 
 always either round or oval. The small crosses in the 
 diamond figure are to show that the owner has danced 
 for rain, in the Religion dance given by his secret society, 
 and been successful in producing it. The colours, red, 
 blue and green, yellow and white, represent the cardinal 
 points ; blue or green (considered one colour) representing 
 the north, yellow the east, white the south, red the west. 
 This means that the dancer has gone around the dance- 
 house without making a mistake. 
 
 The weaver's prayer, sung over and over as long as the 
 work goes on, is not displeasing to the ear the first few 
 times it is heard, but, undoubtedly, the good Manito-ah 
 must be considered by his devotees to have cultivated 
 his patience at the expense of his taste for music, if one 
 may judge by the effect of hundreds of repetitions of the 
 said prayer on an ordinary listener. 
 
 The prayer, " Whoo-lau-kee-chee, whoo-lau-kee-chee-oc 
 {oc is the plural termination), whoo-lau-kee-chee, whoo- 
 lau-kee-chee-oc. Best dancer of all, best dancer of all, 
 pleasing to Manito-ah, pleasing to Manito-ah, who will 
 make him lead perfectly, who has made him lead perfectly. 
 
128 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 who will make his legs more supple, who will make his 
 legs more supple, who will make him lead perfectly, who 
 will make him turn perfectly, who will make him lead 
 perfectly, who will make him turn perfectly because he 
 has already done well, because he has already highly 
 honoured Manito-ah in the dance. Help him, good 
 Manito-ah, continue to help him, good Manito-ah, help 
 the dancer, good Manito-ah, and help the old woman to 
 weave his beads well that they may have no fault in 
 them, but be perfectly done and increase his strength." 
 
 The bead- work of the leg-bands measures 313 mm. by 72 mm. and 
 the fringe 350 mm. The design is shown in Plate II., fig. 60. The 
 fringe consists of nine braids of wool into which the weaving strings 
 are plaited for a short distance, after which the long ends of the wool 
 are left loose. The outermost and central plaits are blue, the remain- 
 ing ones are red. 
 
 61. Pair of Leg-bands or Garters. (Plate II., fig 61.) 
 
 It was worn by Blue Water, a member of the Fish Clan. 
 He discarded it when he attained to high rank in his 
 society. One might call it a beginner*s band, though 
 beginners and experts alike wear patterns, if they choose, 
 which are merely ornamental. The black colour in it is 
 " the shaman's colour." Wherever it appears it indicates 
 that the shaman has prayed over the work. 
 
 The bead- work of the leg-band is 312 mm. long by 72 mm. broad, 
 and the fringe of plaits and loose ends of red wool is 325 mm. in length. 
 
 62. Leg-band made without the Shaman's Symbol. (Plate II., 
 
 fig. 62.) 
 
 The pattern is said to be merely ornamental and worn 
 by a poor man because he could not afford to pay the 
 shaman. 
 
 The bead-work of the leg-bands is 325 mm. long by 40 mm. broad, 
 and the fringe, consisting of 7-9 plaits of red wool with loose ends is 
 288 mm. long. The pattern at each end is shown in Plate II., fig. 62 ; 
 in the centre is a similar blue design, to the apices of the outer 
 triangles of which is added the design shown at the bottom of the 
 figure. 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork. 129 
 
 63. Leg-band worn to prevent Child from having the Measles. 
 (Plate II., fig. 63.) 
 
 Symbol of '*the-woman-with-spots-on-her-face," or her 
 
 protecting power. The pattern is taken from the little 
 
 wooden cubes and triangles she makes, and paints 
 
 according to her fancy, and then hides in a cranny of her 
 
 wigwam. Of the objects^ she has as many as she has 
 
 spots on her face, and the more she has the greater her 
 
 power and the more potent the talisman she has not 
 
 only prayed over but " put herself into " by allowing the 
 
 bead worker to see the objects and picture them. Only 
 
 one leg-band of this description is put on a child. 
 
 This band, which measures 165 mm. long by 27 mm. broad, is tied 
 on to the leg by a central plait of strings at each end. Above and 
 below this central plait are beaded plaits with double rows of beads as 
 described under No. 50. At one end the bead plaits are alternately pink 
 and dark blue, and at the other end mostly pink. Each plait ends in 
 three beaded strings. 
 
 64. Baldrick and Pocket. (Figs. 64a-64d.) 
 
 The Indians have no adequate translation of their name 
 for this showy article of dress. Some say, "Maybe so, 
 sack," but the greater number decline to give it an English 
 name. They call it *' wo-yoo^^ hider, or a place to hide 
 things. In an involved explanation of its uses they so 
 define it, but they will not call it " the hider " in so many 
 words. They keep in it such things as one finds in a 
 killikinnick-bag. 
 
 I cannot find out anything about this, very few men 
 possess one. 
 
 The baldrick measures mo mm. in length and 120 mm. in breadth, 
 exclusive of the scalloped border of blue beads. The bead-work is 
 mounted on the selvage of a black blanket with a green border. The 
 ends are bound with green ribbon and the sides with red, beyond 
 which projects a scalloped border of blue beads. The centre of the 
 baldrick at the back of the neck has the design shown in Fig. 64c, and 
 
 ^ The low -class women of the tribe declare that the women- with-spots play a 
 gambling game with one another using these objects, but this the women them- 
 selves deny. 
 
1 30 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 the pattern all down the left side is that shown in the lower half^of the 
 figure. For half the length, the ground colouring is the^same as is 
 shown in the figure, the following quarter has a turquoise blue 
 ground, with patterns in red, green and blue. In the last quarter, owing 
 to the panels of the ground being worked in dark colours, and each 
 panel in a different colour, the design at first sight appears to |be 
 different from the preceding : the patterns are in varied coloured 
 beads. 
 
 64^ 
 
 ]^On the right side of the baldrick the pattern is in the main that 
 shown in Fig. 64b, but the upper interspaces between the central 
 designs vary from those shown in the lower interspaces (Fig. 64b). 
 
 The pocket is 310 mm. broad and 220 mm. deep, with a narrow cloth 
 flap above, which is fastened down with two hooks and eyes in the 
 middle. A piece of linen lines the bead-work, and, being unattached 
 at the upper edge, thus forms a double pocket. The detail of the 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork. 131 
 
 central design of the bead-work is shown in Fig. 64a ; the lateral 
 designs are the same, but differ in colour. The fringe consists of 18 
 bands, 85 mm. long by 15 mm. broad, terminating in ribbon tassels of 
 different colours. The patterns of i and 2 are shown to the left of 
 
 ► * • ' » 
 
 ■•■•/.v.->'» t'.\\','::;]^y?X- 
 
 64& 
 
 64c 
 
 Fig. 64d, the triangles in the one case being red and green, and in the 
 other, light and dark blue. 3 and 4 and 11 and 12 have the same 
 pattern, the triangles being red and light blue in 3, dark blue and 
 
132 Folk' Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 ^ 
 
 yellow in 4, pink and green in 11 and 12. 5 and 6 have similar 
 designs, but in the former the triangles are red and green. 7, 8, 9, 10 
 
 are shown in the figure. 13 and 14 have the same design, but in 13 
 the dark blue triangles are on a white ground. 15, 16, 17, 18 are 
 shown in the figure. 
 
 65. Moccasins. 
 
 " By their tracks we know them " is an Indian saying. 
 A man may have a coat, shirt, even his silver and beads 
 from another tribe, but he must wear the shoes of his 
 own people. The pointed Apache boot, the broad Sioux 
 slipper with a stitched-on rawhide sole, the Cheyenne shoe 
 with a tassel at the heel to leave its mark in the dust, the 
 Shoshone shoe with pointed tongue lying high on the 
 ankle, the Musquakie shoe with sole and upper in one 
 piece, are the incontrovertible proofs of origin and affilia- 
 tion, and the man who changes the style of his shoe is the 
 " turn-coat " despised by all the tribes. A woman married 
 into another tribe changes her shoes with honour, but a 
 man cannot. 
 
 66. Shaman's Moccasins. 
 
 The shape of those worn by other members of the tribe, 
 but the embroidery is different. The pattern always con- 
 tains some sprawling black and white lines and patches. 
 
1^ Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork, 133 
 
 No one claims that they have any special significance, 
 nevertheless they always appear. The shaman's wife or 
 mother is never put to the trouble of making his foot- 
 wear ; it is given him as an additional fee when he cures a 
 patient. 
 
 67. Shaman's Homed Bonnet. 
 
 This horrible head-dress, made of buffalo horns, strips 
 of stoat or ermine skin, red flannel, eagle's feathers, and 
 wild turkey feathers, is in itself a wonder-worker. The 
 sight of it hanging on a pole is good for minor complaints. 
 This one is old ; if it were new, it would not have on it 
 the horns of a buffalo. At best, it would have the horns 
 of a bull of the wild range-cattle. It might even be horn- 
 less, and so of little power, merely a badge of the profession. 
 When the shaman dances with a really fine horned bonnet 
 on, he is irresistible, unless some demon has stolen a 
 bonnet like it and is dancing in the woods or underground. 
 
 68. Shaman's Goat of Painted and Beaded Buckskin. 
 
 Worn till he grows so warm in the dance that he has to 
 throw it off. It is a poor and unhonoured shaman who has 
 not one or more of these garments, scarce as buckskin has 
 become, for a coat is the standard for fees as a pony (two 
 pounds) is a standard for barter. A shaman will say he 
 will charge a coat, or a half coat, or a quarter, or even a 
 smaller fraction. 
 
 MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.! 
 
 69. Dancer's Hand Battle of Hide filled with Stones. 
 Every dancer adds what he can to the din that keeps 
 
 time to the dancing. Above the boom of the great drum 
 
 ^The following information was sent by the authoress in a letter to Mr. 
 Hartland : 
 
 ** You ask me to name those musical instruments. I can't do it in Indian 
 very well. They give the English names — the Indians, I mean — and make 
 the signs for the Musquakie names. Some objects have no name except this 
 pantomime that can't be put into a catalogue. For a rattle, an Indian, a 
 Musquakie — or any other Algonquin that ever I saw — makes a swishing 
 

 1 34 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 and the " yi-yi " of voices which is the red man's equivalent 
 of singing, is heard a sou^nd like hail falling on water. It 
 is caused by rattles held in the hands, or bound above the 
 garters, on the knees of the dancers. This sort is the 
 favourite because it is the noisiest. It is not considered 
 sacred or treated with any respect when not in use, but is 
 stuck in a rift in the wigwam, or left on the floor for the 
 children to play with. One was found by a visitor among 
 a litter of puppies. 
 
 sound through his teeth and motions as if he were shaking a rattle. If he 
 wishes you to understand that he refers to a turtle-rattle he gives a sidewise 
 jerk as if he were rolling off a log into the water. If he refers to a knee- 
 rattle he gives the sign and then touches his knee. Sometimes ' Ma-see-ka ' 
 is said ; the word means turtle. For a drum, he says, * Toom-toom ' (not 
 * tom-tom ') and imitates the pounding with his right hand and arm, generally, 
 though * lay-ow-low-see ' is the word for it. 
 
 The courting flute is *■ way-ne-lo,' but the word is not used. Instead, one 
 points to a woman or bends his head as if he were a woman with a burden and 
 with his fingers and lips imitates a flute-player. 
 
 The ghost-whistle is * wah-now-skee-way-ne-lo,' but the word is unlucky and 
 is not used. The sign is to make rings of your thumbs and fore -fingers and place 
 them round your eyes to indicate the great hollow eyes of a ghost, then purse up 
 the lips as if about to whistle, at the same time pointing the index finger of the 
 right hand from the lips as if it were a whistle, and then the arms are widely 
 extended and then brought together on the breast as if embracing some one. If 
 one does this after pointing to a person, thus indicating that the person in 
 question is a ghost-whistler, a hair-pulling is sure to follow. A man will often 
 start a fight thus if he wants a lock of hair for a 'soul -protector.* Of course 
 he runs the risk of losing a lock and being otherwise damaged. 
 
 I suppose you would call the turtle from which the rattles are made a 
 terrapin. That is what it really is, the mud terrapin or tortoise [Cinosternum 
 pennsylvanicum). It must not be confused with the Cinosfernum odoratumy 
 though it too has a musky odour. It is found only in America and we call it 
 the 'mud-turtle.' 
 
 A man paints on his drum a bit of family history — his own or an ancestor's. 
 
 He decorates his turtle-rattle as he does his scalp-lock, but he does not 
 seem to have any superstitious reason for it. He sells the rattle with the 
 ornaments on it, though nothing but the most profound trust and affection 
 would induce him to part with his scalp-lock ornaments to his friend. 
 
 A calf s hide rattle has on it a bit of ribbon or horse-hair of no significance. 
 
 A lover ornaments his flute with some bit of finery he has persuaded his 
 sweetheart's little brother or sister to steal for him, " 
 
Catalogue of Micsquakie Beadwork, 135 
 
 70. Dancer's Hand Rattle of Turtle-shell. 
 
 This is of great antiquity, and fetish. When not in use 
 it was not kept in the house of the owner, but in a basket 
 in the dance-house, beside the great drums. Before taking 
 it out of the dance-house a blue glass bead (an imitation of 
 turquoise), or a feather of the golden-winged woodpecker 
 {Colaptes auratus) was burned in its honour by the shaman. 
 The bead or feather was dropped on hot embers brought 
 from the fire outside on which the soup was prepared for 
 the dancers. It was thrown on as the owner lifted the 
 rattle from the basket. Before the owner began to dance, 
 he had the privilege of taking the rattle into his wigwam 
 for a few moments. 
 
 71. Dancer's Knee Battle of Turtle-shell. 
 
 Treated with the same respect as the hand rattle of 
 turtle-shell. Not rendered fetish by being pow-wowed. 
 Any dancer may go out and find a turtle, make a rattle of 
 its shell, place the rattle in a basket, carry it to the dance- 
 house, and, immediately after, if he chooses to take it out 
 for a dance, summon the shaman to burn his bead or 
 feather. 
 
 72. Dancer's Prayer Drum. 
 
 This drum or tambourine is not used in the great 
 Religion dance. A man takes it with him when he goes 
 into the forest to pray aloud. He keeps time on it with 
 his hands as he intones his supplications. He also carries 
 it in the Corn-Planting dance and sings a song to its 
 accompaniment as he marches round the field. When not 
 in use, he hides it in his wigwam. 
 
 73. Young Man's Courting Flute. 
 
 When a young man has obtained the privilege of paying 
 his addresses to a girl, he serenades her with this instru- 
 ment, all night, for three or four months- 
 
136 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 74. WMstle to cafi Ghosts. (Plate VIII, fig. 74.) 
 
 This is an instrument accursed. In former times any 
 man or woman 4bund possessing one was burned at the 
 stake. Whistling with the lips is dangerous and unlawful, 
 for it might attract the attention of a wandering ghost, but 
 whistling with this instrument is a shocking crime. Ac- 
 cording to Musquakie belief, it summons myriads of ghosts 
 to dance and make bad medicine. If a name is mentioned 
 directly after the whistling the one who bears it will die 
 before the year is out. If no name is mentioned, the tribe 
 will be visited with pestilence and plagues of all sorts. 
 The possessor of a whistle is sure to be beaten if found out. 
 
 The whistle is made of wood and is 175 mm. in length, a leathern 
 string is tied on to it. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTS. 
 
 75. Shaman's Medicine Horn. (Plate VIII., fig. 75.) 
 
 Every shaman has one or two nicely scraped and 
 polished horns, which he wears at his belt. The old ones, 
 like this, are buffalo horns; the new ones are of the 
 bulls of the barnyard and range-cattle. Usually, the 
 horns are kept full of a variety of bitter herbs, from which 
 on occasion the shaman brews himself nauseous draughts. 
 When the potions have been prepared in another vessel, 
 they are poured into the horn and drunk from it. He 
 takes a hornful before he begins to pow-wow, or prophesy, 
 dances, or rather, whirls for a few seconds, goes into the 
 sweat-lodge and pours another hornful on a hot stone, 
 inhales the fumes and then goes at his work, whatever 
 it is. The combined effect of the two hornfuls is supposed 
 to give him great powers of divination and healing. A 
 plaited loop of black and white horse-hair, which ends in a 
 long tuft, is attached to the horn. 
 
 76. Shaman's Wand. (Plate VIII., fig. 76.) 
 
 A power that was. The shaman used to carry it into 
 battle, where it not only helped the Musquakies to fight, 
 
.\». 
 
 Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork, 137 
 
 but also raised their dead. The scalp'-locks were cut 
 from the heads of shamans who had assisted their enemies. 
 The skin in the middle is a bear-scalp, the "medicine" 
 that brought the dead to life; as the bear is a great 
 healer, and his strength is in his scalp. 
 
 This specimen consists of a rough stick 980 mm. in length with the 
 bark on. Near the upper end is a disk, 80 mm. in diameter, covered 
 on one side with red flannel and edged with white beads ; fastened on 
 it is a disk of red flannel about 50 mm. in diameter, edged with brown 
 feathers ; the disk has a dark border and is decorated with an equal- 
 armed cross of translucent and green beads, at the end of each of the 
 four arms of the cross is a brass bead. Fastened to the stick below 
 this are two leather strings, each bearing two white beads and a 
 terminal claw. 
 
 Near the centre of the stick is a shield of red flannel, 240 mm. long 
 and 1 10 mm. broad, it has a rounded upper end, the sides are roughly 
 parallel to one another, and the lower end is produced into two equal 
 scallops ; it is bound round with white beads. A semicircular piece 
 of skin is fastened to the upper portion of the shield, to this 
 three tassels of coloured ribbons and one brass bead are fastened. 
 Below the skin is a row of four (originally six) brass beads ; below 
 this, two rolls of white and red beads ; these are followed by a long 
 spiral of brass wire ; below this are two rows of blue and white beads, 
 separated by a row of six brass beads. Each of the four beaded rolls 
 or bands consists of a central broad band of white beads with two 
 coloured and two white narrower bands on each side. Below the 
 lowermost band of beads are six triangles of white beads and six brass 
 beads, followed by another spiral of brass wire ; in each terminal 
 scallop are three brass beads. A piece of skin with white fur passes 
 through and projects beyond the ends of each brass spiral tube. On 
 each side of the shield is a strip of skin, with white fur bound round 
 its middle with red flannel, which is bound round with coloured beads ; 
 below the beads the skin is cut into three narrow strips. Above the 
 shield are three long tassels of black and dark brown hair the upper 
 part of each of which is bound round with cloth and beads. 
 
 Below the shield is a small disk of leather, 43 mm. in diameter, 
 bordered with turquoise blue beads. The surface of the disk is 
 covered with a continuous spiral of beads composed of an outer circle 
 of dark blue and two concentric circles each of pink and turquoise 
 blue. There is a central brass bead. 
 
 The two disks and the shield are tied on the stick with leathern strings. 
 
138 Folk- Lore of the Musquakie Indians. 
 
 71. Shaman's Pouch, of Mink-skin, with Sacred Feathers. 
 
 No account given of this object. It appears to be 
 fetish, for when the shaman put it on, the squaws con- 
 fessed that they were afraid. He wore it at the great 
 council, and sold it when the council was over. It had 
 in it, when he parted with it, nothing but a piece of 
 otter fur. Everyone was surprised when he parted with 
 it, as it was very old and had been used many times. 
 
 78. Peace-pipe, of Catlinite, with Carved and Twisted Stem. 
 
 ^' Lau-no-way-watch'O-nee-tarl^ the Musquakies call it, 
 "the blessed, or beloved, pipe." This one belonged to 
 the whole tribe, not to a clan. It was smoked by the 
 head-chief's council and those with whom they had just 
 concluded a peace. The bowl is catlinite, a red pipe-stone 
 named after George Catlin, the artist and student of 
 Indian life. There is but one mine of this stone. It 
 is in Pipestone County, Minnesota ; and thither all Indians 
 must resort for the stone from which they manufacture 
 ceremonial pipes and cups. The stem of this lau-no-way 
 is of hickory, shaped and twisted by the agency of knives, 
 fire and water. The wood was soaked till it was pliable, 
 then twisted by the application of fire in pith. Last of 
 all, it was smoothed and cut by the knife. The trimming 
 is not quills but coloured grass, and was the only work 
 done by a squaw. The pipe was used once by a drunken 
 chief; if it had not been, it would not have been sold. 
 
 79. Tomahawk or War-Pipe (Etha-way-na-lau-no-way), 
 
 Bowl and stem of catlinite. Used in the ceremony, 
 "Burying the hatchet," which is now only an historical 
 drama to illustrate what the tribal historian relates. As 
 he tells of the burial of the hatchet after a peace was 
 cemented by a peace-smoke and the interchange of 
 wampum, the young men take the hatchet-pipe from 
 his hands and go away as if to bury it. Formerly, it 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork. 139 
 
 was buried, to be dug up privately next day, but now 
 it is merely hidden in the wigwam where it is kept. Once, 
 the digging up and smoking of the war-hatchet were 
 impressive ceremonies, but they are now forbidden by 
 the chiefs. Of old, when the tribe was ready for war 
 every warrior of the tribe, and every ally, stripped to 
 the skin, painted himself black, and stood near the war- 
 chief while he dug up the hatchet, filled it with killikinnick, 
 and lighted it at the head-chief's council-fire; and then, 
 beginning with the head-chief himself, all smoked in turn 
 and raised the war-cry. While the warriors remained on 
 the war-path, the war-pipe was kept in the dance-house 
 watched over by the old men. When the tribe was fleeing 
 before its enemies, an old man of the chief's council 
 carried it. 
 
 80. Bow, Arrows, and Quiver. 
 
 Used only by the historian, who aims, as he recounts 
 the deeds of a hero, sometimes at a mark, sometimes 
 at an animal. The arrows would be more satisfactory 
 if they were tipped with stone, but the bow could not 
 be better. It is of bois d'arc^ wrapped with deer-sinew 
 and with a well-twisted sinew-cord. The quiver is of 
 good buckskin and was the only one left in the tribe. 
 
 81. Bow and Arrows. 
 
 These, once the property of a famous prophet and 
 medicine-man, were used in the last battles against the 
 whites. The shaman claimed that the arrows knew his 
 voice and the singing of their own bow, and returned 
 to his hand when he spoke, and fitted themselves to the 
 cord. The exhibition of them at the council was forbidden 
 by the chiefs, as it was likely to inflame the minds of 
 the young men, and cause them to wage disastrous 
 warfare with their neighbours. 
 
140 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 82. Man's Club. 
 
 Used by the historian to illustrate the old manner of 
 warfare. ^ 
 
 83. Woman's Club. 
 
 Used by the women in their societies to illustrate what 
 was of old a woman's work on the battlefield, which 
 was to brain the wounded before a retreat, so as to prevent 
 their being tortured by the enemy, and to break the 
 limbs of the wounded enemy, if they were victorious. 
 Sometimes also, they disfigured the dead with clubs as 
 well as knives, so that if those who scalped them took 
 them into the spirit-land as slaves, they would have the 
 additional misfortune to be disfigured there. 
 
 84. Whip or Quirt. 
 
 Once a ceremonial object. It was used to give the 
 children the one flogging of their lives to test their 
 endurance before the puberty feast. Now, floggings are 
 discontinued, and the whip has gone out of fashion. 
 
 85. Woman's Cloth Prayer-mat. 
 
 The honourable women, the women who are the 
 mothers of healthy sons or, failing that, have conferred 
 some other great benefit on the tribe, are entitled to a 
 seat on the ground near the council fire, and between 
 the rows of dancers when a Religion dance is in progress. 
 Some meekly sit in the dust, but the greater number 
 make for themselves mats of cloth or grass. A woman 
 who wishes to be considered exclusive has a small one, 
 while a matron who courts popularity has one on which 
 a half-dozen or more of her friends can sit with her. 
 When one wishes to add her own prayers to those for 
 which she has paid the shaman, she takes her mat to the 
 woods, and sits or stands upon it while she entreats the 
 aid of her totem or the Manito-ah. When her sons and 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork. 141 
 
 husband lay wagers on the ball-game or horse-race, they 
 borrow her cloth mat and use it as a betting blanket, 
 that is, a cloth on which are piled the sums or objects 
 wagered. 
 
 86. Woman's Grass Prayer-mat. 
 
 This may not be used as a betting blanket ; other- 
 wise, it serves the purposes of its owner, as does the cloth 
 one. Very few women can weave a close, smooth grass 
 mat, though many make the attempt when first married, 
 for a bridegroom's first gift to his bride is the bone 
 needle, of his own manufacture, which is used to push 
 the grass in and out of the warp of twine or strips of 
 the inner bark of the elm. He has no loom for her, he 
 merely cuts her two poles which she lays on the ground 
 at a distance apart, which measures the length of her 
 mat, and to them attaches the ends of her twine or 
 bark. 
 
 87. Dancer's Cup. 
 
 It is not a dancer s cup, though it is so called ; it is 
 the cup in which he is given soup while he is dancing. 
 There are but few of these catlinite cups in the tribe, 
 and they are owned by old women. As there are not 
 enough of them to serve every one, only the most 
 distinguished dancers receive them ; the rest have to 
 be content with gourds and tin cups. The women 
 never drink from a dancer's cup. 
 
 88. Dancer's Spoon. 
 
 The leader of the dance has a right to the choicest 
 morsels of the meat and vegetables taken from the 
 bottom of the soup-pot. These morsels are offered in 
 a wooden bowl, and he helps himself from it with a 
 wooden spoon which is given him by the old man who 
 has made it, or had it given to him when he was a 
 
142 Folk-Lore of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 dancer. The older the spoon the more of an honour 
 it is to receive it. It is an utensil that conduces to 
 awkwardness ; for, ordinarily, your Musquakie picks up 
 his meat in his fingers. 
 
 89. Dancer's Wooden Bowl. 
 
 Used for the meat and vegetables in the bottom of 
 the soup-pot when the honourable women are feeding the 
 dancers. Owned by the tribe, manufactured by a man, 
 taken care of by the honourable women ; it is never used 
 at a private feast, nor eaten from by a woman. 
 
 90. Stone Axe for killing WMte Dog. 
 
 For ordinary work a Musquakie squaw employs the 
 steel axe of the white man, but for ceremonials the stone 
 implement of her forefathers must be used. If the dog 
 of sacrifice were killed by the axe of civilization, the 
 sacrifice would be wasted or turned against the giver of 
 it. The dog is struck on the back of the head and the 
 axe at once put out of sight. 
 
 91. Parfleclie of Fainted Buffalo Hide. 
 
 Supposed by the old people to have been sent from 
 the Manito-ah, at the time of famine, full of buffalo meat. 
 A young man of exemplary piety was so moved by the 
 sufferings of his people that he prayed until he fell down 
 in a swoon. When he recovered consciousness he found 
 himself in the presence of the Manito-ah and the totems, 
 who fed him and then sent him back to earth on a great 
 bird, with the parfleche full of meat in his arms. When 
 the meat had fed all the tribe, the parfleche was, according 
 to the instructions given by the totems, set out of doors 
 and left over night. In the morning all sorts of game 
 had collected round it, and the hunters killed enough 
 to last the rest of the winter. For a long time the par- 
 fleche held a dancer's costume, but it was finally sold 
 by a poor widow who had no sons to care for it. 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork. 143 
 
 92. Pestle and Mortar, 
 
 These two rough pieces of wood the Indians call a 
 mill, and with them make the sacred meal. Formerly, 
 all the meal, whether made from maize, beans, or acorns, 
 was pounded in this primitive mortar. But, for a long 
 time, it has been the custom of the Musquakies to buy 
 flour and meal from the white people for ordinary con- 
 sumption ; so now the mill has become a ceremonial 
 object, only brought out before a dance feast or funeral 
 feast to prepare the maize, nuts, and cherries in the 
 old way. 
 
 93. Woman's Bone Needle. 
 
 A woman's first present from her bridegroom. She 
 uses it when she makes her grass prayer-mat. 
 
 94. Needle-case and QuiUs. 
 
 The needle-case is of buffalo-intestine. The porcupine 
 quills are both needles and thread to the embroiderer 
 as she presses them into the buckskin she is adorning. 
 Quills are scarce, and very few squaws know how to 
 dye them without spoiling them, and fewer still embroider 
 with them, nearly everyone preferring beads and ribbons. 
 
 95. Fin-case and Thorns. 
 
 The squaws as a rule are more ready to adopt new 
 fashions than the men ; but one old fashion they cling 
 to, while the men do not — the fashion of using the 
 thorns of the honey-locust {Gleditschia triacanthos) instead 
 of the brass pins of civilization. 
 
 96. Woman's Loom for Beadwork. 
 
 There is nothing remarkable about this simple little 
 machine, excepting that the holes for the threads are 
 burned instead of bored or cut. When a squaw is asked 
 "why," she answers "must be,*' and not another word 
 can she be made to say. When her husband does not 
 
144 Folk-Lore, of the Musquakie Indians, 
 
 make one for her, she takes a straight piece of bark 
 and makes holes in it with a fish bone or needle, and 
 this seems to keep her threads in place as well as the 
 other. When asked why she does not burn holes in 
 the bark, she shakes her head and smiles. 
 
 97. Awl-case. 
 
 Every Musquakie has an awl which he or she puts 
 to use as a white neighbour would both awl and needle, 
 that is, if one used needle and thread separately. But, 
 more than this, the awl is fetish. It must have a pretty 
 case, and be kept in it for hours of repose as if it were 
 a living workman. The woman makes the case, saying 
 many sing-song prayers as she works at it. 
 
 98. Baby-carrier. 
 
 An extremely convenient cradle. When the papoose 
 is securely fastened into it, he can be borne on his 
 mother's back as she goes about her daily toil, or he 
 can be stood up against the wigwam wall, or slung from 
 ^ the wigwam poles or the branches of a tree for his 
 mother to rock, by moving a string fastened to her wrist 
 or foot. Often toys and fetishes are fastened to the 
 front of it ; and, no matter how simple they are, they 
 will keep him amiably staring by the hour. The father 
 and mother both work on the carrier. He makes the 
 woodwork ; she does what sewing is necessary. 
 
 99. Herb-basket. 
 
 Made of the inner bark of the hickory, and painted 
 (unfortunately) with the ugly pigments of the white 
 trader ; the old dyes the squaws extracted from roots 
 and berries were beautiful. Used by the honourable 
 women to hold simples. 
 
 100. Saddle. 
 
 Sometimes used by squaws. 
 
Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork, 145 
 
 101. Child's Toy Turtle. 
 Both plaything and fetish. 
 
 102. Child's DoU. 
 
 Plaything and fetish, or, perhaps, victim. Disease 
 may be drawn from the child to the doll, as the child 
 plays with it 
 
 103. Child's Bow and Arrows. 
 
 All the little boys, and many of the little girls, are 
 skilful archers. They use the sharp arrows to kill 
 rabbits and squirrels ; the blunt one to break the necks 
 of birds and field-mice. 
 
 104. Bat. 
 
 For a game similar to la crosse. It is not fetish ; 
 nevertheless fire and water must be employed for its 
 manufacture. The wood is rendered pliable by being 
 soaked in running water ; the holes are made by fire. 
 The ball is a common, rubber one bought from the 
 white trader. » 
 
 105. Shaman's Bat. 
 
 While the game is in progress a shaman stands at 
 either end of the ball-ground, each with a very long- 
 handled bat, which he holds high while he whirls round 
 and round, praying for the success of his side. The 
 successful players receive no credit ; it all goes to the 
 shaman. The shaman whose side loses gets no pay. 
 The bat is generally a very old one, "handed down" 
 from its owners teacher and predecessor. He "makes 
 medicine' over it, in the sweat-lodge, before each game. 
 
 106. Shaman's Prayer-mat of Buffalo-hide. 
 
 A poor specimen, but the only one that could be 
 obtained. The shaman stands on his mat and prays 
 
 K 
 
146 Folk' Lore of the Musquakie Indians^ 
 
 before and after the Buffalo dance. As he continually 
 stamps and whirls, he soon wears out a mat ; and as 
 "buffalo-robes" are scarce and dear, his followers have 
 trouble in keeping him supplied. 
 
 107. Photographs. 
 Evidences of a new fashion and a change of opinion 
 
 on the part of the Musquakies. A few years ago not 
 one of them would have dared to have his picture taken, 
 lest it fall into the hands of an enemy, who, injuring 
 the picture, would thereby injure the original. 
 
 108. Model of Summer Tent. 
 Very good as to shape, but misleading as to material. 
 
 The cone-shaped summer or travelling tent has hickory 
 poles, and a covering of cowskins sewed together. Its 
 shape proclaims that it is a temporary convenience, the 
 permanent wigwam for summer or winter being mound- 
 shaped. 
 
 109. Divorce Sticks. 
 When a husband and wife have agreed to disagree 
 
 publicly and permanently, they go hand in hand, the 
 morning after the head-chiefs council fire is lighted, to 
 the members of the council, and the one who first 
 suggested "parting" asks for a divorce. To the one 
 asking, a councillor hands from a bundle he keeps ready 
 for the purpose a dry twig. The one receiving it hands 
 it to the unsatisfactory mate, who should break it and 
 drop the fragments on the ground. Occasionally the Old 
 Adam gets the better of etiquette, and Mr. Musquakie 
 (it is almost always that the woman applies for the 
 divorce, few men being willing to gw^ up their minor 
 children) so far forgets his dignity as to fling the bits 
 of stick in madam's face. When the stick is broken, 
 both the man and the woman are free to marry at once, 
 
o 
 
 Catalogue of Musquakie Beadwork, 147 
 
 and sometimes do so. No one loses caste by reason of 
 a divorce, but there is no flute playing, no long courtship 
 for a divorced woman or a widow. If a divorced man 
 marries a girl, he must pay his court to her as a bachelor 
 would. 
 
MUSQUAKIE BEADWORK 
 Plates I.-VIII. 
 
Plate i 
 
 ^ < 
 
 53 
 
 CWilson , Camkriclq e. 
 
 MUSQUAKIE Be AD WORK 
 
Plate 2 
 
 N 
 
 M 
 
 / 
 
 A 
 
 
 r 
 
 60 
 
 62 
 
 61 
 
 E.Wilson, Cambridqe 
 
 MUSQUAKIE Be AD WORK 
 
Plate 3. 
 
 23 
 
 22 
 
 16 
 
 57 
 
 55 
 
 Plate 4. 
 
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 r ,>,'k . 
 
 * '.•••/n - ■ 
 
 17 
 
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 28 
 
 27 
 
 26 
 
 MUSOUAKIE BEADWOKK 
 
Plate 6. 
 
 47 
 
 52 
 
 MUSQUAKIE BEADWORK 
 
Plate 7. 
 
 51 
 
 48 
 
 53 
 
 MUSQUAKIE BEADWOKK 
 
Plate 8. 
 
 76 
 
 74 
 
 75 
 
 MUSOUAKIE BEADWORK 
 
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